Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 71 Ministers took oath on Sunday evening to form the new coalition government at the centre after the NDA alliance scraped through victory with the support of its allies against the INDIA bloc.
Out of the 71 ministers, 30 are Cabinet Ministers, 5 are Ministers with Independent Charge and 36 are Ministers of State. Modi’s cabinet in his historic third term will retain the known faces in the big four ministries. Amit Shah will be at the helm of Home portfolio, Rajnath Singh will lead Defence, Foreign ministry will be retained by S Jaishankar and the Finance ministry will be looked after by Nirmala Sitharaman.
The Prime Minister will handle the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space.The Road Transport and Highways will be retained by Nitin Gadkari. Piyush Goyal has retained the Commerce portfolio.
Manohar Lal Khattar will handle two key ministries — Power and Housing and Urban Affairs.JD(U) MP Ram Nath Thakur, son of Karpoori Thakur, has been appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
Jayant Chaudhary, the MP from Rashtriya Lok Dal, an ally of BJP in Uttar Pradesh, has entered the cabinet as Minister of State (Independent Charge). Mr Chaudhary has been allocated the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Minister of State in the Ministry of Education.
G Kishan Reddy has been appointed as the Minister of Coal and Minister of Mines in Prime Minister Modi’s Cabinet in the third term. Jual Oram, the BJP MP from Odisha, has been allocated the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Giriraj Singh has been appointed as the Minister of Textiles.
Pralhad Joshi, who served as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in Modi 2.0, has been appointed the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Minister of New and Renewable Energy in Modi 3.0.
Hardeep Singh Puri has retained the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the Cabinet. Sarbananda Sonowal has been allocated the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.
Piyush Goyal, who won the Mumbai North constituency in the Lok Sabha Elections, has retained the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Chirag Paswan from the Lok Jan Shakti (Paswan) has been appointed to the Ministry of Food Processing.
BJP MP and party chief JP Nadda, has been assigned the Ministry of Health in Modi 3.0. Mr Nadda will be replacing Mansukh Mandaviya. The former Health Minister has been given the Ministry of Labour and Employment in the Cabinet.
HD Kumaraswamy, the MP from BJP ally Janata Dal (Secular), has been allocated the Ministry of Heavy Industries. Kiren Rijiju, who was the Minister of Earth Sciences, And Minister of Food Processing Industries in the previous term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, has been appointed the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, replacing Prahlad Joshi. Mr Rijiju will also take charge of Ministry of Minority Affairs.
Meanwhile, Mr Joshi has been allocated the Food, Consumer Affairs and Renewable Energy ministry. Dharmendra Pradhan has retained the Ministry of Education in Modi 3.0. Bhupendra Yadav has also retained the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India.
Ram Mohan Naidu from BJP’s ally Telugu Desam Party, has been appointed the Civil Aviation Minister. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who took oath yesterday, has been appointed the new Agriculture Minister.
Ashwini Vaishnaw has retained Railways Ministry, a key portfolio in the Cabinet. He has been given an additional charge as the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Anurag Thakur, the BJP MP from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, was the I&B minister in the Modi cabinet in the previous term. He has also retained the Ministry of Information and Technology.
Jitan Ram Manjhi from Hindustani Awam Morcha, an ally of the BJP, has been allocated the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises