District representation, influence, and community arithmetic are among the factors that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) is weighing in ahead of its cabinet expansion. The southern state is expected to receive more ministers before Thursday evening, media reports said.
Congress legislators S. Rajeshkumar and P. Viswanathan are almost certain to receive cabinet berths in the TVK government. However, the AIADMK rebel faction, which backed Vijay during the floor test, is highly unlikely to get any, following persistent protests from TVK’s post-poll allies.
The CPI(M) and Congress are against allotting cabinet positions to C. Ve. Shanmugam, S. P. Velumani, or any other MLAs who abandoned Edappadi Palaniswami's leadership following the poll debacle. With the unity of the alliance in doubt, Vijay's camp has decided to go with what his allies want, reports said.
Apart from his smaller allies, TVK's legal advisors also opined that the party should not go for any such politically risky experiments that have the potential to cause instability in the initial period itself, DT Next said in a report.
While lobbying is in full swing among the party's MLAs to secure ministerial berths, the TVK will take the position that the AIADMK faction backing them during the floor test was a political decision that the Dravidian major made, and Vijay has no obligation to reward them for the same.
N. Marie Wilson (Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar), ECR P. Saravanan (Sholinganallur), V. Sathyabama (Tiruppur North), and Rhevanth Charan (Maduravoyal) are some of the names doing the rounds to join the cabinet, DT Next claimed. Tamil Nadu is yet to have designated ministers for many departments, including Higher Education, Revenue, Transport, Social Welfare, and Agriculture.
