As many as 43 new ministers will take oath today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi expands his cabinet. PM’s new cabinet will be one of the most inclusive with a considerable representation of SC, ST members.
As per the sources, there will be 12 members from the SC community including two in the cabinet and eight from ST out of which three will be in the cabinet. Post-expansion, Modi's government will have about 27 OBC leaders and of these five will be in the cabinet.
In the cabinet reshuffle, there will be several new entrants along with the existing minister who will be reassigned. The reshuffle comes as the Modi administration was heavily criticized over the handling of second wave of coronavirus pandemic.
Many top ministers including Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, were renounced. Where education and labor ministries are also expected to change, it is unlikely that the ‘big four’ ministers for finance, foreign affairs, home minister and defense will change.
As per government sources, Prime Minster intended to include younger members of his party to be ministers. PM also aimed at giving greater representation to women and backward classes which is a notable step ahead of major state elections starting with UP.
Due to coronavirus risk, a small ceremony with fewer guests will be held in Rashtrapati Bhavan at 6 pm on Wednesday. Here’s a list of all 43 ministers to be sworn in today.
- Narayan Rane
- Sarbananda Sonowal
- Dr. Virendra Kumar
- Jyotiraditya M Scindia
- Ramchandra Prasad Singh
- Ashwini Vaishnaw
- Pashupati Paras
- Kiren Rijiju
- Raj Kumar Singh
- Hardeep Singh Puri
- Mansukh Mandaviya
- Bhupender Yadav
- Parshottam Rupala
- G. Kishan Reddy
- Anurag Singh Thakur
- Pankaj Choudhary
- Anupriya Singh Patel
- Dr. Satya Pal Singh Baghel
- Rajeev Chandrasekhar
- Shobha Karandlaje
- Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma
- Darshana Vikram Jardosh
- Meenakshi Lekhi
- Annapurna Devi
- A. Narayanaswamy
- Kaushal Kishore
- Ajay Bhatt
- B. L. Verma
- Ajay Kumar
- Chauhan Devusinh
- Bhagwanth Khuba
- Kapil Moreshwar Patil
- Pratima Bhoumik
- Dr. Subhas Sarkar
- Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad
- Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh
- Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar
- Bishweswar Tudu
- Shantanu Thakur
- Dr. Munjapara Mahendrabhai
- John Barla
- Dr. L. Murugan
- Nisith Pramanik