Modi starts with small cabinet
In keeping with his electoral pledge of “minimum government, maximum governance”, Narendra Modi has gone for a lean cabinet.
His council of ministers is comprised of 45 members including him. Of them, 23 are cabinet ministers, 10 junior ministers with independent charge and 11 junior ministers under cabinet ministers.
BJP President Rajnath Singh will be home minister in the new government.
Sushma Swaraj will be external affairs minister. She will be assisted by former army chief General VK Singh as minister of state.
Arun Jaitley will be finance minister and will also hold additional charge of defence. He will be assisted in the defence by Rao Inderjit Singh as minister of state.
Former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu will be parliamentary affairs minister. Another former party president Nitin Gadkari is expected to land a mega transport ministry. Sadananda Gowda will have charge of railways.
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti will be union minister for water resources. Najma Heptullah will have charge of minority affairs.
Former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde is expected to be handed the rural development ministry. Maneka Gandhi will be union minister for women and child development.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is tipped to be law minister and also have charge of telecom. Radha Mohan Singh a Bihar BJP leader will hold the key portfolio of agriculture. Prakash Javadekar, senior BJP spokesperson, will be information and broadcasting minister and will also head environment.
Actress Smriti Irani, 38, who took on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in a spirited contest in Amethi in the general election, is tipped to be human resource development minister.
Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan, who defeated journalist-turned-politician Ashutosh of the Aam Aadmi Party and former union minister Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk, will be the new health minister.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman will be the new commerce minister with independent charge. BJP Rajya Sabha member Piyush Goyal will be power and coal minister with independent charge. Party general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan will have independent charge of the high-profile oil ministry.
Leaders of BJP's allies in the NDA were sworn in too. Bihar leader Ram Vilas Paswan will have charge of food and civil supplies and consumer affairs; the TDP's Ashok Gajapathi Raju will be civil aviation minister. Shiv Sena leader Anant Geete has also been sworn in. Akali leader Harsimrat Kaur will be food processing minister.
BJP veterans like Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who were deputy PM and human resource development minister in the previous BJP-led government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (from 1999 to 2004), respectively, did not find berths in the Modi ministry.
Sources: NDTV
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