Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday took oath to office for a rare third consecutive term. The swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi and his Cabinet ministers was administered by President Droupadi Murmu, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. A mix of old and new faces, the Union Cabinet for the 18th Lok Sabha includes 30 cabinet ministers, five ministers of state with independent charge and 36 ministers of state.
Of the 71 ministers sworn in Modi Government 3.0, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has retained at least 31 ministers from the last cabinet, including big names like Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar and Nitin Gadkari. The Modi 3.0 cabinet has expanded to 72 members, including 30 Cabinet Ministers and 5 Ministers of State (independent charge). The majority of the berths are allocated to the BJP, with the remaining going to allied parties.
As many as 5 cabinet positions have been allotted to allies, while 2 Ministers of State have been assigned independent charge and 4 are serving as Ministers of State. The distribution of cabinet posts favours larger coalition partners, including JDU, TDP, LJP, JDS, and HAM, with key figures securing cabinet positions. The latest Cabinet list shows the structure of the Modi 2.0, which also comprised 72 ministers. The ministerial count has seen a gradual increase from 58 in 2019 to 78 in 2021.
Meanwhile, BJP’s NDA partners received five cabinet ministerial berths in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as against none in the outgoing government, given the party’s dependence on allies for a majority in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP had an absolute majority in the previous two terms — the 16th and 17th Lok Sabhas — which reflected in the council of ministers with only a few alliance partners being given space.
While the outgoing council of ministers had two ministers of state from BJP’s allies — Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal (S) and Ramdas Athawale of the RPI(A) — this time, there are two ministers of state with independent charge and four ministers of state (MoS), including Patel and Athawale.
With inputs from News18