The Union Cabinet for the 17th Lok Sabha comprises 24 cabinet ministers apart from Modi, nine ministers of state with independent charge and as many as 24 ministers of state
In his second term Prime Minister Narendra Modi is helming a 58-member ministry
BusinessToday.In
May 31, 2019,
Updated May 31, 2019, 1:28 PM IST
Narendra Modi took oath as the 15th Prime Minister of India on Thursday evening, and in his second term he is helming a 58-member ministry. The Union Cabinet for the 17th Lok Sabha comprises 24 cabinet ministers apart from Modi, nine ministers of state with independent charge and as many as 24 ministers of state. Significantly, one-third of the total ministers in the Modi's 2.0 Cabinet are the first-timers - six cabinet ministers and 13 ministers of state kick-off their first innings today. The buzz is that the first meeting of the new Union Cabinet is likely to be held this evening.
The new government has the maximum representation from the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh - 10 faces, including Modi who represents Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency - followed by seven from Maharashtra and six from Bihar. The council has representation from almost all the other states in smaller numbers, except Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura. Here's a detailed look at the names that made it to the cabinet:
List of cabinet ministers
Rajnath Singh, home minister in the previous term
Nitin Gadkari, former Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister
Piyush Goyal, in charge of coal, power, railways and finance portfolios for different time spans
Dharmendra Pradhan, former Union minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas
DV Sadananda Gowda, who had handled railway ministry, law and justice, statistics and programme implementation and chemicals and fertilisers for various spans of time
Nirmala Sitharaman, first woman defence minister of India
Narendra Singh Tomar, who had headed various ministries like mines, labour and employment, steel, and rural development and Panchayati Raj.
Ravishankar Prasad, Union Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology Minister.
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, served as Union Food Processing Minister
Thawar Chand Gehlot, former Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment
Smriti Irani, former HRD and Information & Broadcasting Minister and the youngest cabinet minister in the Modi 1.0 government
Dr Harsh Vardhan, headed the Health Ministry followed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and Ministry of Science and Technology
Prakash Javdekar, in charge of the Ministry of Human Resource Development
Mahendra Nath Pandey, served as a Union minister of state (MoS) in the HRD ministry between 2016 and 2017
Giriraj Singh, served as a member of the Standing Committee on Labour and Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament in the first term of the Modi government
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Minority Affairs Minister in the previous cabinet
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, served as minister of state for agriculture and farmers' welfare in September 2017
Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in Modi 1.0 government
The first-time cabinet ministers:
Amit Shah, national president of the BJP and a key strategist. In his maiden lok sabha elections, he won the Gandhinagar seat with a margin of over 5.5 lakh votes.
S Jaishankar, a career diplomat, who retired as the foreign secretary of India
Ramesh Pokhriyal "Nishank", the former Uttarakhand chief minister never bagged any ministerial berth after that stint despite winning every election he contested in the ensuing years
Arjun Munda, the three-time Jharkhand chief minister has also served as BJP's national general secretary
Prahlad Joshi, elected MP from Darwad constituency in Karnataka for the fourth consecutive term
Arvind Sawant, the Shiv Sena leader is a second-time MP from the Mumbai South constituency
Ministers of state with independent charge in Modi's new cabinet