Narendra Modi took oath as the Prime Minister of India for the third time on Sunday, 9 June, five days after the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were declared.
Other senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders such as Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, and Nitin Gadkari were also sworn-in as Ministers for a third consecutive term.
However, as the new Modi Cabinet shapes up, there were some surprise entries and exits:
Surprise Entries To The Cabinet
1. JP Nadda: Jagat Prakash Nadda, currently the president of the BJP, served as the Health Minister in the first Modi Cabinet in 2014. Nadda's swearing in as a Cabinet Minister is surprising, considering the BJP's performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Unlike his predecessor Amit Shah, under whose leadership the BJP won 303 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats, BJP under Nadda could not manage to cross the halfway mark on its own — leaving more room for alliance partners and giving the Opposition a new lease of life.
2. Manohar Lal Khattar: Former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also took oath as the Cabinet Minister. In a sudden move, Khattar resigned as the Chief Minister of Haryana earlier in April, and was replaced by Nayab Singh Saini. The anti-incumbency being faced by Khattar-led state government is being said to have cost BJP five out of ten seats in the recently held General Election.
3. Jual Oram: One of BJP's tallest leaders in Odisha, Oram took oath as a Minister for the first time in 1998 when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee created the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. He also served as the Tribal Minister in the first Modi government in 2014. Currently, Oram is the President of BJP's state unit in Odisha where the party swept the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls recently.
4. Lalan Singh: Rajiv Ranjan Singh (Lalan Singh), the JD(U) MP from Munger in Bihar. A close aide of CM Nitish Kumar, this is Lalan Singh's first stint as a Union Cabinet Minister.
5. Ram Mohan Naidu: After taking oath today, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party became the youngest union cabinet minister of India. He is also the National General Secretary of the TDP and the Leader of the Party in the Lok Sabha.
6. HD Kumaraswamy: Former leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy has served as the Chief Minister of Karnataka twice from 2006-2007 and 2018-2019.
7. CR Paatil: Gujarat BJP Chief CR Paatil was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister for the first time. Under his leadership, in 2022, the BJP won a seventh consecutive election with a record 156 of 182 seats, the most won by any political party in Gujarat's history.
8. Shivraj Chouhan: The senior BJP leader, who is also the longest serving Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, took oath as a Minister in the new Cabinet. Chouhan was expected to get a ministerial berth ever since he was not picked as the Chief Minister despite leading the party to a mammoth victory in the 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.
9. Ravneet Bittu: Bittu, who recently shifted from the Congress to the BJP, has been inducted as a Minister of State. His inclusion is surprising because he recently lost the Lok Sabha election from Punjab's Ludhiana seat to Congress' Amarinder Singh Raja Warring. Bittu is the only leader from Punjab to be included in the council of ministers.
10. George Kurian: A low-profile leader from Kerala, George Kurian has been associated with the BJP for over four decades. He has been national vice-president of the BJP's youth wing and an office bearer in BJP's Kerala unit. He has also been part of the National Commission for Minorities. He is the only Christian in the new council of ministers.
Those Who Were Left Out
1. Smriti Irani: The former Member of Parliament from Amethi, Irani was part of the Union Cabinet in 2014 and 2019. She held multiple portfolios such as the Minister of Human Resource Development, Minister of Textiles, Minister of Women and Child Development, and Minister of Minority Affairs. The giant slayer who defeated Rahul Gandhi in his bastion of Amethi in 2019, however, has been dropped from the new Cabinet after she lost to Congress' KL Sharma.
2. Anurag Thakur: Anurag Thakur, who had previously held portfolios such as the Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports and the Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs is also not a part of the new Cabinet. Member of the Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Hamirpur, Thakur, in a statement earlier today, congratulated Modi and the newly appointed ministers. "The BJP has given me the opportunity to contest the Lok Sabha polls five times. There cannot be a bigger opportunity than this for me," he said.
3. Arjun Munda: A prominent Tribal face of the BJP from Jharkhand, Arjun Munda has also been dropped from the Cabinet. He was the Minister of Tribal Affairs in the second Modi government in 2019.
4. Rajeev Chandrashekhar: Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Chandrashekhar was fielded against veteran Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, which he lost by a margin of 16,077 votes.
5. Narayan Rane: Rane, a former Maharashtra Chief Minister, was the Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the previous Cabinet. A prominent BJP face from the state, he was also dropped from the current Cabinet.
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