Jammu and Kashmir Assembly speaker Kavinder Gupta and seven others were sworn in as ministers in the state’s PDP-BJP government led by Mehbooba Mufti on April 30.
In place of Nirmal Singh, Kavinder Gupta will now be the new deputy chief minister.
The new BJP faces sworn in were party’s state unit chief Satpal Sharma and Kathua and Sambha MLAs, Rajiv Jasrotia and Devinder Kumar Manyal, respectively.
The PDP members included in the cabinet were Mohd Khalil Band, MLA from Pulwama, and Mohd Ashraf Mir, MLA from Sonwar.
Including the chief minister, the state can have a maximum of 25 ministers, out of which 14 portfolios are with the PDP and the remaining are with the BJP.
The oath of office and secrecy was administered by the governor.
In order to enable bringing in new faces in the two-year-old Mufti cabinet, the BJP on April 17, asked all its nine ministers in the PDP-BJP government to submit their resignations.
Out of eight ministers inducted into the cabinet seven were new faces.
