20 first timers among those sworn in as ministers in PM Modi's cabinet

New Delhi, May 30: Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman and Prakash Javadekar were among the 36 ministers who were sworn in Thursday for a second term, besides 20 MPs who took oath of office as cabinet ministers for the first time.

While 24 cabinet ministers were sworn-in the Modi government, nine took oath as ministers of state (Independent charge) and 24 others as ministers of state. Home minister in the previous Narendra Modi government, Rajnath Singh was the first to take oath after the prime minister. Ram Vilas Paswan, DV Sadananda Gowda, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Harsh Vardhan, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Muqtar Abbas Naqvi were among those who got a second chance.

Giriraj Singh, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Sripad Yaso Naik, Jitender Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Mansukh Mandavia, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Krishan Pal Gurjar, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Purshottam Rupala, Ramdas Athavale and Babul Supriyo, were among the ministers of state in the previous government who were retained in the new council.

Hardeep Puri was reinducted into Modi's council of ministers despite losing the Lok Sabha polls. Prakash Javadekar who handled four portfolios in the previous regime of the Modi government including Human Resource Development, Environment, Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, was sworn in for a second term.

Mahendra Nath Pandey, who was appointed as the Minister of State for HRD in the Modi government before he was made president of BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit in 2017, also took oath as a cabinet minister. Similarly, Faggan Singh Kulaste, a six-time MP from Mandla constituency in Madhya Pradesh, who was Minister of State for Health in the previous government during 2016-17, was inducted in the new council of ministers.

While the inclusion of Amit Shah, seen as BJP’s key strategist who helped the party to expand its base after taking over the reins of the party in 2014, was much speculated, former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, considered close to Modi, was a surprise pick. Former Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda, former Uttarakhand chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, four-time MP from Karnataka's Dharwad-Prahlad Joshi, Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant, five-time MP from Maharashtra's Jalna-Raosaheb Danve, Gangapuram Kishan Reddy from Telangana, three-time Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur, were among those who took oath as Union ministers for the first time.

Other first-timers included Debasree Chaudhuri, Kailash Choudhary, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Rameshwar Teli, Renuka Singh Saruta, V Muraleedharan, Ratan Lal Kataria, Nityanand Rai, Angadi Syresh Channabasappa and Dhotre Sanhay Shamrao. Prahlad Singh Mulayam Singh Patel who was the Coal Minister in the Vajpayee government also took oath at the glittering ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

PTI