EK Palaniswami allots portfolios, keeps Home and Finance

CHENNAI: Edapaddi K Palaniswami, who today took office as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, will hold the important Home and Finance portfolios, which were earlier held by his predecessor O Panneerselvam.

Besides, the new Chief Minister will also take care of other key portfolios of Public Works, Highways and Minor Ports, which he had managed as a minister in the Jayalalithaa and Panneerselvam cabinets.

The Chief Minister allotted the following portfolios to his Cabinet Ministers: C Srinivasan (Forests), K A Sengottaiyan (School Education), K Raju (Cooperation), P Thangamani (Electricity), S P Velumani (Municipal Administration), D Jayakumar (Fisheries) and C Ve Shanmugam (Law).

K P Anbalagan will look after Higher Education, V Saroja (Social Welfare), M C Sampath (Industries), K C Karuppannan (Environment), R Kamaraj (Food), O S Manian (Handloom), K Radhakrishnan (Housing), C Vijaya Baskar (Health and Family Welfare), R Dorai Kannu (Agriculture), Kadambur Raju (Information), R B Udhayakumar(Revenue) and N Natarajan (Tourism).

K C Veeramani has been allotted Commercial Taxes, K T Rajenthira Balaji (Dairy Development), P Benjamin (Rural Industries), Nilofer Kafeel (Labor), M R Vijayabaskar (Transport), M Manikandan (Information Technology), V M Rajalakshmi (Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare), G Baskaran (Khadi and Village Industries Board) and S Ramachandran (HR and CE).

S Valarmathi has been given charge of Backward Classes and Minority Welfare department, while P Balakrishna Reddy will be the Animal Husbandry minister.

All the Ministers, barring Sengottaiyan, had handled the respective portfolios in the Panneerselvam cabinet too.

K Pandiarajan, now in the Panneerselvam camp, was School Education Minister in the previous cabinet.