Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 23 ( IANS): At a time when Kerala is passing through tough financial times, the state cabinet meeting held here on Wednesday upgraded the position of Advocate General with cabinet rank, taking the total number of people outside the Kerala cabinet having cabinet status to five.

Consequent to this, C.P.Sudhakaran Prasad, who is the Advocate General will get cabinet status.

A few months back, three time CPI-M Lok Sabha member A.Sampath, who lost the Lok Sabha polls, was given cabinet status and was posted at Delhi to liaison with the Centre for fulfilling the needs of Kerala that has to be followed up with various departments in Delhi.

Prior to this was the appointment of K.Rajan, a CPI legislator as chief whip with cabinet status when in the opposition (2011-16). The Left had created a furore then, when the Congress led UDF appointed a chief whip.

84-year-old R. Balakrishnan Pillai, who heads the Kerala Congress (Pillai) which was an ally of the Congress led UDF, shifted allegiance to the Left and was made the chairman of the Kerala State Welfare Corporation for Forward Communities with cabinet rank.

He held the same post while in the UDF.

And the first person who got cabinet rank status, after the Pinarayi Vijayan government assumed office in May 2016, was the now 96 year old former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who was made the chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission, for effecting a smooth take over for Vijayan.

Cabinet status posts come with attractive perks, including close to two dozen staff members, and lifelong pension after serving a minimum tenure.

To keep public anger in check over the lavish expenditure on these appointments, the justification for Wednesday's upgrade is that Prasad already enjoys all these perks and it's only for administrative efficiency that this post was upgraded. Moreover, in other states, this post has cabinet status.