Cong gets major slice of UPA ministry

It is no big brother attitude but numbers have really made it numero uno much ahead of the rest of the lot in the ruling alliance with 206 members in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

The party has 58 ministers including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 79-member UPA cabinet which was sworn in two phases the last being on Thursday.

Among the allies, both DMK and Trinamool Congress have got the maximum number of seven berths each.

DMK with 18 MPs is a clear winner among the allies as it has got three cabinet berths for Dayanidhi Maran, M K Azhagiri (eldest son of DMK chief Karunanidhi) and A Raja along with four Ministers of State.

Trinamool Congress with 19 seats has got one cabinet berth (Mamta Banerjee as Rail Minister) and six berths of Minister of State.

Sharad Pawar led NCP, which got nine seats, has to contend with three ministries one in each category cabinet (Sharad Pawar), MoS with independent charge (Praful Patel and MoS (Agatha Sangma).

National Conference President Farooq Abdullah could get only one ministry for himself while E Ahmad is lone member from IUML to become a minister.

Of the 34 Cabinet ministers, Congress has kept 28 while eight has gone to allies like DMK, NCP, Trinamool Congress and National Conference.

Similarly, the party has kept six of the seven berths of MoS with independent charge leaving one for NCP. Of the 38 berths of MoS, 26 ministers are from Congress quota, six from Trinamool Congress, four from DMK and one each from NCP and IUML.