UP CM carries out cabinet expansion before 2017 polls

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will today expand his Cabinet in perhaps the last reshuffle of his Council of Ministers ahead of next year's assembly elections in the state. Governor Ram Naik will administer oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers at the Raj Bhawan here. Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party Government, which assumed office in 2012, inducted five Cabinet Ministers in October last year, eight Ministers of State with independent charge and eight Ministers of State. The Samajwadi Party had on Saturday revoked its merger with gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's Qaumi Ekta Dal (QEM). Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav said that Uttar Pradesh Minister Balram Yadav, who was sacked by the Chief Minister, apparently for facilitating merger will also be taken into the state Cabinet. The merger of the two parties was announced on June 21 by Samajwadi Party spokesman and senior Cabinet Minister Shipal Yadav, who is the brother of Akhilesh's father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.