Modi Cabinet expansion: All you need to know about new Ministers

In the first cabinet expansion exercise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inducted 21 Ministers into his council. Four Ministers were allotted cabinet rank, whereas three took charge as Ministers of State (independent charge). The remaining 14 took oath as MoS.

With Sunday's expansion, the numbers of Ministers in the Modi's cabinet have now gone to 66. The previous UPA Government had 73 Ministers.

Here is a look at list of Ministers which were inducted into Modi's team on Sunday.

Cabinet Ministers
Manohar Parrikar: The former Goa Chief Minister was first to take oath as a Cabinet Minister.
The technocrat-turned politician Manohar Gopalkrishna Parrikar, a three-time Goa Chief Minister, is known for his administrative acumen and clean image to leave an indelible mark on the politics of the tiny state.
A Mumbai IIT graduate in metallurgical engineering and among the first members of BJP in Goa, 59-year-old Parrikar has been instrumental in raising the profile of his party from its just four members in state assembly in 1994 to its present status as a ruling party with the highest number of seats in the State Assembly.

Suresh Prabhu: The Shiv Sena leader Suresh Prabhu has returned to the Union Cabinet after having served in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government during when he won kudos for imparting a new dynamism to the functioning of the Power Ministry. That the 61-year-old banker-politician from coastal Konkan was in good books of the Narendra Modi regime became evident after he was appointed head of a government panel on power revamp called Advisory Group for Integrated Development of Power, Coal and Renewable Energy.

Prabhu is known as a performer.

Jagat Prakash Nadda: A master-strategist and a trusted lieutenant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as BJP President Amit Shah, Jagat Prakash Nadda's entry into the Government is a vindication of his efficiency and dependability who prefers to work behind the scenes. Nadda is seen as a member of the most powerful troika along with Modi and Shah. He is known to be part of all major decision making processes in the party,
His big leaf into politics started during emergency in 1977 as Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad secretary. Nadda is known to maintain a low profile and claims himself to be a disciplined solider of RSS.

Birendra Singh: A life-time Congress man, he joined the BJP before the assembly elections in Haryana protesting the leadership of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Grandson of illustrious peasant leader Chhotu Ram, the 68-year-old politician has been a five-time MLA and served as a cabinet minister in Haryana three times.
The rise of BJP in Haryana offered him an alternative and his stature as a Jat leader also proved to be an asset for the saffron party. BJP believes Singh's entry in the government will bring Jats closer to it in a state where they are the most numerous and influential community.

Ministers of State (Independent charge)
Bandaru Dattatreya: Dattatreya is a four-time MP who joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi's counil of ministers and comes from a modest background and with his sheer simplicity, soft-spoken and down-to-earth nature came up in his political career.

The 67-year-old from Hyderabad, belonging to the backward class, has already served as the union minister of state twice in the past. He will be the only representative from Telangana in the union cabinet.

Rajiv Pratap Rudy: At an age of 38, he was inducted as one of the youngest ministers in the Vajpayee government in 2000.

He used to fly for a commercial airline. He is tech-savvy and is active on social networking sites such as Twitter. Rudy, 52, who was hired as a co-pilot with Delhi-based private airline IndiGo Airlines on an honorary basis, is a well known face in media circles. He is one of the few English speaking BJP leaders from the Hindi heartland, a qualified lawyer and a lecturer in the Magadh University in Bihar. He was first time elected to the state assembly from Taraiya on the Janata Dal ticket in 1990. He joined the BJP after the mid-90s. He served as commerce and industry minister from September 2001 to May 2003 and as civil aviation minister from May 24, 2003, to May 21, 2004.

Dr Mahesh Sharma: A doctor by profession, Sharma is BJP MP from Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida. Sharma has been a long associate of the RSS and is former Noida MLA from the BJP. Suave and hard working, he is also known for his networking skills and the financial muscle. He successfully broke the caste matrix in Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida) and won the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. His links with the RSS, with which he was connected very early in life and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), is also said to be an added asset.

Ministers of State

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: The best known Muslim face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been the saffron camp's poster boy for Uttar Pradesh.

The 57-year-old post-graduate in mass communications has been known for his media one-liners and punch lines against his political adversaries, especially in his one-time political bastion of Rampur. He was minister of state for information and broadcasting in previous NDA Government.

Hansraj Ahir: He is a member of Lok Sabha from Chandrapur in Maharashtra and was instrumental in exposing the coal scam. An active Parliamentarian, Ahir had introduced a large number of private member bills in over 15 years as an MP.

Giriraj Singh: Giriraj Singh, who is known for his fiery and at times controversial statements, has found a berth in the Narendra Modi ministry as a representative of Bhumihars, who backed the party in Bihar and felt let down due to lack of representation in the Council of Ministers. Singh, a first time MP, is also one of the early Modi loyalists in the party

Ram Kripal Yadav: Once RJD chief Lalu Prasad's aide quit the party after he was being denied a ticket from Pataliputra and contested on BJP ticket and defeated lalu's daughter Misa Bharti. A former deputy mayor of Patna and a law graduate, Yadav is known for his rhetoric in both the houses of Parliament.

Babul Supriyo: Bollywood's singing sensation Babul Supriyo, who hails from West Bengal, also joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers. He quit a lucrative job at a multinational bank to pursue his first love - singing.

From being nominated for the tough Asansol cosntituency in West Bengal, where the BJP has been traditionally weak, to pulling off a surprise win, and now getting a berth in the Narendra Modi ministry - it has been a meteoric rise for Supriyo.

Jayant Sinha: The son of senior BJP leader and former minister Yashwant Sinha, Jayant Sinha, 51, was elected to the Lok Sabha this year from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. He spent 12 years with McKinsey & Company as a partner apart from serving as president of Internet Business Capital Corp and in consulting positions at Stone & Webster and Synergic Resources Corporation, US.

Vijay Sampla: Vijay Sampla, who was once a plumber, scaled new heights on Sunday with his induction in the Narendra Modi ministry that is apparently aimed at 2017 Assembly polls in Punjab where the BJP hopes to play the Dalit card to woo the Scheduled Caste community. After SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal, 53-year-old Sampla is the second Lok Sabha MP from Punjab to become a Union Minister.

Sanwar Lal Jat: Sanwar Lal Jat who defeated Congress heavyweight Sachin Pilot from the Ajmer seat. He is a powerful leader in the area. He had quit the Vasundhara Raje Cabinet to contest the Lok Sabha elections.
Mohan Kundariya: He is an influential leader from Patel community and MP from Rajkot.

Ram Shankar: A second time Lok Sabha member from Agra, Shankar is an academician by profession and had been part of the party's anti-corruption campaign.

Along with them YS Chowdhary of TDP, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary from Banaskantha constituency of Gujarat and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti from Fatehpur constituency in UP also took oath.

(With inputs from agencies)