As many as 43 leaders were inducted as ministers in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet during the swearing-in at Rashtrapati Bhawan on July 7.
This includes 36 new faces, including seven women and 12 first-time members of parliament (MPs), and seven ministers of state (MoS) who were elevated. This is the first reshuffle of the PM Modi-led government since National Democratic Alliance (NDA) retained power in 2019.
Ahead of the reshuffle, 12 ministers tendered their resignations including Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal.
Portfolio allotment to the new ministers will follow soon.
The new faces who made 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.
READ: Cabinet Reshuffle | 43 ministers to take oath today; Scindia, Sonowal & Lekhi among new faces
The new faces were administrated oath of office by President Ram Nath Kovind. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders were present during the swearing-in.
Nisith Pramanik, 35, of Cooch Behar, West Bengal is the youngest member of Team Narendra Modi. After the reshuffle, the average age of the new Council of Ministers is 58 years as against 61 years for the previous cabinet.
Other new faces include Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)'s Pashupati Paras, former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane, Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel and New Delhi MP, Meenakshi Lekhi.
The ministers of state elevated include Kiren Rijiju, RK Singh, Hardeep Puri, Anurag Thakur, Purshottam Rupala, Mansukh Mandaviya and G Kishan Reddy.
Among other new names on 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 was rife. Prime Minister held several rounds of discussion with senior party leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party chief JP Nadda and general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh in the last few days. PM Modi has personally reviewed the performance of existing ministers.
Here is the list of ministers who took oath:
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