CHENNAI, MAY 21 — Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay expanded his two-week-old ministry on Thursday by inducting 23 new ministers, establishing a historic multi-party coalition executive in Tamil Nadu.
The expansion at Lok Bhavan increased the total strength of the cabinet to 33 members, combining 21 ministers from the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam and two representatives from the Indian National Congress. The political realignment fundamentally alters the state’s traditional governance model, as previous dominant Dravidian factions consistently excluded alliance partners from official ministerial portfolios.
During the morning proceedings, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar administered the oaths to successive groups of designees, including TVK legislators C. Vijayalakshmi, S. Kamali, Srinath, and R.V. Ranjithkumar.
“A total of 23 MLAs, including two from the Congress, are scheduled to be sworn in,” officials noted in a Lok Bhavan press statement distributed shortly before the ceremony began.
The decision to allocate cabinet seats to the Congress ends a 59-year absence from the state executive branch for the national party. The Congress last held ministerial authority in Tamil Nadu prior to the historic 1967 assembly election, when Dravidian pioneer C.N. Annadurai led the DMK to a decisive majority that fundamentally changed regional politics.
Under the current arrangement, Congress lawmakers P. Viswanathan and S. Rajesh Kumar received formal approval from party leadership to assume their ministerial duties alongside the TVK cadre. The administrative expansion follows the initial launch of the TVK government on May 10, when Vijay first assumed the chief minister’s post alongside a preliminary 9-member leadership panel to manage key portfolios.
