iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
Narendra Modi took oath for his third term as Prime Minister along with 72 ministers including 30 Cabinet Ministers of the new coalition government in the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday. Modi seems to have done a balancing act by including his NDA partners in the cabinet.
Modi government has representation from different social groups and corners of the country. It has 27 ministers from Other Backward Classes, 10 from Scheduled Castes, 5 from Scheduled Tribes, and 5 from minorities. The Modi Cabinet includes several former chief ministers, 34 ministers who have served in state legislatures, and 23 MPs who have worked as ministers in states.
Modi won the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi by 1.5 lakh votes, a margin much narrower than the 2019 election when he had won by a 4.6 lakh margin. The same trend was reflected in the recently concluded general elections where the BJP failed to achieve the majority mark of 272 seats, while the NDA coalition scraped through with 292 seats. The result was far short of the BJP’s pre-poll projection of 400-plus seats.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath to PM Modi, and then Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah were sworn in. Nitin Gadkari was the fourth leader to be administered the oath of office by the President. JP Nadda, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, and Manohar Lal Khattar followed in taking oath. Loud cheers from the mammoth audience greeted the MPs as they were called on stage to be administered oath by the President.
The first sign of Modi’s balancing act in his third term was evident when former Karnataka Chief Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) MP HD Kumaraswamy took oath after Khattar. He was the first leader from any of the BJP’s allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to take oath. Soon after him, Janata Dal (United) leader Lalan Singh, a close aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, also took the oath. Sarbananda Sonowal and Kiren Rijiju were the first leaders from the northeast to take oath. Virendra Kumar, a prominent Scheduled Castes face of the BJP and eight-time MP from Madhya Pradesh’s Tikamgarh reserved seat, was inducted into the Narendra Modi government. Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan was also inducted into the Narendra Modi government.
Cabinet Ministers
Rajnath Singh (BJP)
Amit Shah (BJP)
Nitin Gadkari (BJP)
JP Nadda (BJP)
Shivraj Singh Chouhan (BJP)
Nirmala Sitharaman (BJP)
S Jaishankar (BJP)
Manohar Lal Khattar (BJP)
HD Kumaraswamy (JDS)
Piyush Goyal (BJP)
Dharmendra Pradhan (BJP)
Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM – Hindustani Awam Morcha)
Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh (JDU)
Sarbananda Sonowal (BJP)
Dr Virendra Kumar (BJP)
Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu (TDP)
Pralhad Joshi (BJP)
Jual Oram (BJP)
Giriraj Singh (BJP)
Ashwini Vaishnaw (BJP)
Jyotiraditya Scindia (BJP)
Bhupender Yadav (BJP)
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (BJP)
Annapurna Devi (BJP)
Kiren Rijiju (BJP)
Hardeep Singh Puri (BJP)
Mansukh Mandaviya (BJP)
G Kishan Reddy (BJP)
Chirag Paswan (LJP-Ram Vilas)
CR Patil (BJP)
