Narendra Modi Cabinet named. Amit Shah is new home minister, Rajnath Singh gets defence, Nirmala Sitharaman finance, S Jaishankar foreign affairs
Narendra Modi (front left) with his new ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
New Delhi: A day after being sworn in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Cabinet has been announced, on Friday, which has sprung some surprises. Amit Shah, who led the Bharatiya Janata Party to a spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha election has been given the charge of ministry of home affairs. With this, Shah dislodges Rajnath Singh as the Number 2 in the pecking order, after the prime minister.
Rajnath Singh, who was the home minister, will now head the defence ministry, which saw three ministers – Arun Jaitley, Manohar Parrikar and Nirmala Sitharaman – in the first Modi government. It now seems that there would be some stability in the ministry. As home minister, Singh headed the country’s paramilitary forces, except the Coast Guard, which work in tandem with the Army in counterinsurgency/anti-terror operations in Kashmir and the northeast. Many of his MHA work overlapped with the defence ministry.
Nirmala Sitharaman, who was the defence minister, will now be the new finance minister. She replaces Arun Jaitley, who has opted out of the government owing to health concerns. Sitharaman has had finance experience in the previous Modi government as she was once the minister for corporate affairs and industry, which is considered to be as the junior finance minister’s post.
Career diplomat S Jaishankar will be in charge of the ministry of external affairs. He was the foreign secretary in the previous government and is considered to be the prime minister’s voice in diplomacy. His appointment as the new foreign minister was a bygone conclusion when he was sworn in as a new Cabinet minister along with others during Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on Thursday.
The full list of the Union Cabinet are as follows:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi | In charge of: | |
1. | Amit Shah | Minister of home affairs |
2. | Rajnath Singh | Minister of defence |
3. | Nitin Gadkari | Minister of |
4. | DV Sadananda Gowda | Minister of chemicals and fertilizers |
5. | Nirmala Sitharaman | Minister of |
6. | Ram Vilas Paswan | Minister of consumer affairs, food and distribution |
7. | Nagendra Singh Tomar | Minister of |
8. | Ravi Shankar Prasad | Minister of |
9. | Harsimrat Kaur Badal | Minister of food-processing industries |
10. | Thaawar Chand Gehlot | Minister of social justice and empowerment |
11. | Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar | Minister of external affairs |
12. | Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ | Minister of human resource development |
13. | Arjun Munda | Minister of tribal affairs |
14. | Smriti Zubin Irani | Minister of women and child development |
15. | Dr Harsh Vardhan | Minister of |
16. | Prakash Javadekar | Minister of |
17. | Piyush Goyal | Minister of |
18. | Dharmendra Pradhan | Minister of |
19. | Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi | Minister of minority affairs |
20. | Prahlad Joshi | Minister of * Coal |
21. | Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey | Minister of skill development and entrepreneurship |
22. | Arvind Ganpat Sawant | Minister of heavy industries and public enterprise |
23. | Giriraj Singh | Minister of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries |
24. | Gajendra Singh Shekhawat | Minister of jal shakti |
The full list of ministers of state (independent charge):
1. | Santosh Kumar Gangwar | Ministry of labour and employment |
2. | Rao Inderjit Singh | Ministries of |
3. | Shripad Yesso Naik | Ministries of |
4. | Dr Jitendra Singh | Ministries of |
5. | Kiren Rijiju | Ministries of |
6. | Prahalad Singh Patel | Ministries of |
7. | Raj Kumar Singh | Ministries of |
8. | Hardeep Singh Puri | Ministries of |
9. | Mansukh L Mandaviya | Ministries of |
Ministers of state full list:
1. | Faggansingh Kulaste | Ministry of steel |
2. | Ashwini Kumar Choubey | Ministry of health and family welfare. |
3. | Arjun Ram Meghwal | Ministries of |
4. | General Vijay Kumar Singh (retired) | Ministry of road transport and highways |
5. | Krishan Pal | Ministry of social justice and empowerment |
6. | Danve Raosaheb Dadarao | Ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution |
7. | G Kishan Reddy | Ministry of home affairs |
8. | Parshottam Rupala | Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare |
9. | Ramdas Athawale | Ministry of social justice and empowerment |
10. | Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti | Ministry of rural development |
11. | Babul Supriyo | Ministry of environment, forest and climate change |
12. | Sanjeev Kumar Balyan | Ministry of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries |
13. | Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao | Ministries of |
14. | Anurag Singh Thakur | Ministries of |
15. | Angadi Suresh Channabasappa | Ministry of railways |
16. | Nityanand Rai | Ministry of home affairs |
17. | Rattan Lal Kataria | Ministries of |
18. | V Muraleedharan | Ministries of |
19. | Renuka Singh Saruta | Ministry of tribal affairs |
20. | Som Parkash | Ministry of commerce and industry |
21. | Rameswar Teli | Ministry of food-processing industries. |
22. | Pratap Chandra Sarangi | Ministries of |
23. | Kailash Choudhary | Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare |
24. | Sushri Debasree Chaudhuri | Ministry of women and child development. |
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