Bengal breaks record of Union Ministers

With the swearing in of six ministers of state in the Manmohan Singh government today, West Bengal has eight ministers, including two of Cabinet rank, which is a record.

The state has two heavyweight ministers -- finance and railways headed by Pranab Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee, respectively.

Six new MoS from Trinamool Congress -- Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy, Sisir Adhikary, C M Jatua and Dinesh Trivedi -- took oath today.

In the eighties, Pranab Mukherjee held the finance portfolio and A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury railways in the Indira Gandhi ministry.

In the previous UPA government, there were only two Cabinet ministers, Pranab Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, but no MoS from the state.

The state had one Cabinet minister and two MoS in the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA government. Mamata Banerjee was the railway minister, while Tapan Sikdar and Satyabrata Mukherjee were the two ministers of state.

Earlier, Ghani Khan Chowdhury, P R Dasmunshi and Ajit Panja found berths in the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government at the Centre.