Cabinet Reshuffle | 43 ministers to take oath today; Scindia, Sonowal & Lekhi among new faces

As many as 43 leaders will take oath as ministers in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet on July 7. This includes 36 new faces and seven ministers of state who will be elevated.

This is  first cabinet reshuffle since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) retained power in 2019.

The new faces likely to make it to the Cabinet,  include Jyotiraditya Scindia, who left the Congress for the BJP last year ahead of regime change in Madhya Pradesh, and Sarbananda Sonowal, who was replaced by Himanta Biswa Sarma as Assam Chief Minister after the BJP won a second term in the northeastern state in May.

43 leaders to take oath today in the Union Cabinet expansion. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Bhupender Yadav, Anupriya Patel, Shobha Karandlaje, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ajay Bhatt, Anurag Thakur to also take the oath. pic.twitter.com/pprtmDu4ko

— ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2021

Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)'s Pashupati Paras, former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane, Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel and New Delhi MP, Meenakshi Lekhi have also made it to the list.

READ: PM Narendra Modi's Cabinet Reshuffle: A look at the rules and the process before the final names are announced 

The Union Cabinet can have 81 members, as per the rule. There were 53 ministers in the PM Modi's cabinet but a series of them, including Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, resigned hours before the names were announced.

Among other new names in the list of 43 ministers include, BJP general secretary Bhpender Yadav, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar, BJP MP from Odisha Ashwini Vaishnaw, Uttarakhand MP AJay Bhatt, to name a few.

For quite some time now, speculation about a possible union cabinet reshuffle were rife.  Prime Minister held several rounds of discussion with senior party leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Party Chief Nadda and general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh in the last few days. PM Modi has personally reviewed the performance of existing ministers.

Among the ministers of state to be elevated include Kiren Rijiju, RK Singh, Hardeep Puri, Anurag Thakur, Purshottam Rupala, Mansukh Mandaviya and G Kishan Reddy.

The reshuffle comes days ahead of Monsoon session of Parliament beginning July 19.

On July 7, Union minister Thaawarchand Gehlot was appointed as Governor of Karnataka as President Ram Nath Kovind also announced reshuffle and appointment of seven other Governors.

The present Modi government took oath on May 30, 2019. It had 57 ministers (24 Cabinet Ministers, 9 Ministers of State (Independent Charge) and 24 Ministers of State), 12 more than the first government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 303 seats and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats in 2019 general elections.

Here is the complete lost of 43 leaders who will take oath today :

1. Narayan Tatu Rane
2. Sarbananda Sonowal
3. Dr. Virendra Kumar
4. Jyotiraditya M Scindia
5. Ramchandra Prasad Singh
6. Ashwini Vaishnaw
7. Pashu Pati Kumar Paras
8. Kiren Rijiju
9. Raj Kumar Singh
10. Hardeep Singh Puri
11. Mansukh Mandaviya
12. Bhupender Yadav
13. Parshottam Rupala
14. G Kishan Reddy
15. Anurag Singh Thakur
16. Pankaj Choudhary
17. Anupriya Singh Patel
18. Dr. Satya Pal Singh Baghel
19. Rajeev Chandrasekhar
20. Shobha Karandlaj
21. Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma
22. Darshana Vikram Jardosh
23. Meenakashi Lekhi
24. Annpurna Devi
25. A. Narayanaswamy
26. Kaushal Kishore
27.  Ajay Bhatt
28. BL Verma
29.  Ajay Kumar
30. Chauhan Devusinh
31.  Bhagwanth Khuba
32. Kapil Moreshwar Patil
33.  Pratima Bhoumik
34. Subhas Sarkar
35. Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad
36. Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh
37. Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar
38. Bishweswar Tudu
39. Shantanu Thakur
40. Dr. Munjapara Mahendrabhai
41. John Barla
42. Dr. L. Murugan
43. Nisith PramanikFollow LIVE updates of the Cabinet reshuffle here