Bhupender Yadav, S Jaishankar likely to be part of Modi 3.0 cabinet; Annamalai ruled out

K Annamalai

Ahead of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi's oath taking ceremony, speculations are rife that BJP's Bhupender Yadav and S Jaishankar are likely to be a part of the Modi 3.0 cabinet. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai may not be a part of the new Modi team.

BJP's Annamalai lost in Coimbatore in the recent polls against DMK’s Ganapathy Rajkumar P by 1,18,068 votes.

All leaders, who will take the oath of office along with Narendra Modi, were invited to Modi’s residence for a meeting earlier today. Over 65 ministers are likely to take oath.

Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, who held home, defence, finance and external affairs ministries respectively in the outgoing government, besides its other senior members such as Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Hardeep Singh Puri are expected to be part of the new government.

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 240 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. However, it is a far cry from the 303 mark it had achieved last time.

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To be able to form a government, the BJP this time needed support from its allies which included the likes of Chandrababu Naidu's TDP, Nitish Kumar's JDU, among others. After receiving their support, Modi expressed his gratitude for the people of India after staking his claim to form a new government for a third term.

The oath taking ceremony will take place at 7:15 pm today.

Also Read: Modi cabinet 3.0: Here's a list of MPs who are likely to be sworn in today