Savitri Jindal, Aftab Ahmed take oath as Haryana ministers

Governor Jagannath Pahadia administed the oath of office and secrecy to them

Congress MLAs from Hisar and Nuh, Savitri Jindal and Aftab Ahmed were today inducted in the Council of Ministers in Haryana, as the much-awaited expansion of Bhupinder Singh Hooda Cabinet took place here.

The two were sworn in as Ministers, with Governor Jagannath Pahadia administering the oath of office and secrecy to them at a function held at Haryana Raj Bhawan here.

With the induction of the two, the number of ministers in the cabinet, including the Chief Minister has reached 14, which is the upper limit for number of ministers in state.

The vacancies in the Cabinet were created after O P Jain and Gopal Kanda, both Independents, had to resign after their names figured in different criminal cases.

Tinsukhia born 64-year-old Savitri Jindal, one of the richest woman in the world and mother of industrialist-MP Naveen Jindal, has been made a minister for the second time in the Hooda government.

She was previously Haryana's Minister of Power but had to make way to accommodate the Independents who helped Hooda form the government after the Congress was reduced to minority with 40 seats in the 2009 Assembly polls.

Ahmed (47), a law graduate and a Meo Muslim from Mewat, had emerged as a frontrunner for a ministerial berth since there was no representative of Meo Muslim community in the cabinet.

Ahmed is also a chief whip of the Congress Legislature Party.