New Faces In Modi Cabinet 3.0: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath on Sunday, along with 72 ministers from the new alliance government. Among them, 30 are Cabinet Ministers, 5 hold independent charges, and 36 are Ministers of State. However, a total of 33 fresh faces made their debut in the 18th Lok Sabha cabinet.
The list includes at least six ministers from well-known political families and three former Chief Ministers: Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), and HD Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Chouhan is a five-time MP from Vidisha, and he is the longest-serving CM of Madhya Pradesh. Khattar, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, served as the chief minister of Haryana twice.
Seven first-timers are from allied parties. They include K Rammohan Naidu and Chandrasekhar Pemmasani from TDP, Lalan Singh and Ram Nath Thakur from JDU, Jayant Chaudhary from RLD, Chirag Paswan from LJP, and HD Kumaraswamy from JD(S).
Jayant Chaudhary, the 45-year-old national chairman of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), is the grandson of India’s fifth Prime Minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh, and the son of former Union Minister Chaudhary Ajit Singh. Previously with the Samajwadi Party, Chaudhary joined the NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
A highly influential leader from Bihar, Chirag Paswan, is the son of the late Ram Vilas Paswan. His Lok Janashakti Party won all five Lok Sabha seats it contested under the NDA coalition.
The BJP leaders who are holding their maiden cabinet berths include Kamlesh Paswan (Uttar Pradesh), Sukanta Majumder (West Bengal), Durga Das Uikey (Madhya Pradesh), Raj Bhushan Chaudhary (Bihar), Satish Dubey (Bihar), Sanjay Seth (Jharkhand), C R Paatil (Gujarat), Bhagirath Chaudhary (Rajasthan), Harsh Malhotra (Delhi), V Somanna (Karnataka), and Savitri Thakur (UP).
Kamaljeet Sehrawat (Delhi), Prataprao Jadhav (Maharashtra), George Kurian (Kerala), Kirti Vardhan Singh (UP), Tokhan Sahu (Chhattisgarh), Bhupathi Raju Srinivasa Varma (Andhra Pradesh), Nimuben Bambhniya (Gujarat), Murlidhar Mohol (Maharashtra), Pabitra Margherita (Assam), and Bandi Sanjay Kumar (Telangana) are also among the BJP’s fresh faces.
Based on inputs from news agency PTI.