The second round of swearing in will take place on Thursday around 11.30 am. The ambiguity that prevailed over the cabinet expansion came to an end last evening after a three hour meeting between Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress’ delay on finalizing the cabinet was because the party wanted to create a balance between caste and age, so that the cabinet is equally represented. Around 50 percent of the names have been finalized.

Farooq Abdullah, former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Mallikarjun Kharge, a Dalit Congress leader from Karnataka, Praful Patel of NCP, and Agatha Sangma are included in the list. Dinesh Trivedi, Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmed, Chowdhury Jatua, Sisir Adhikary and Mukul Roy of the Trinamool Congress will also be sworn in.