KD NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, June 10: As portfolios for the ministers in the newly formed Cabinet were announced on Monday, as many as 10 Union ministers from Narendra Modi 2.0 team retained their ministries. Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh are back as the Home and Defence Ministers, while Maharashtra MP Nitin Gadkari is holding on to the Ministry for Road Transport & Highways.
Shah has also retained the Ministry of Cooperation, while Ashwini Vaishnaw, Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar and Nirmala Sitharaman have retained the Railways, Commerce, External Affairs and Finance berths respectively. Former Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal has retained the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, while Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas has again gone to Hardeep Singh Puri. Further, Bhupender Yadav has retained the Environment, Forest and Climate Change portfolio.
Vaishnaw also holds the Information and Broadcasting Minister position, previously held by Hamirpur MP Anurag Singh Thakur. Meanwhile, Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be the new Agriculture minister and ex-Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar will now head the Ministry of Power and Housing and Urban Affairs ministry.
Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Karnataka CM H D Kumaraswamy will head the Ministry of Steel and Telugu Desam Party’s Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu will be the new Civil Aviation minister, a post previously held by Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Senior BJP leaders C R Paatil and Dharmendra Pradhan will head the Jal Shakti and Education ministries respectively, while Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan is all set to become the new Minister of Food Processing Industries.
Dharwad MP Pralhad Joshi has been moved from Parliamentary Affairs to the ministries of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and New and Renewable Energy. Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs have been allocated to Kiren Rijiju, while Tribal Affairs has been given to Odisha MP Jual Oram.
All eyes will be on who is chosen to head the BJP as JP Nadda has been given charge of Health and Family Welfare, and Chemicals and Fertilizers. Meanwhile, Mansukh Mandaviya has been moved to Ministries of Labour and Employment, and Youth Affairs and Sports. Following his thumping victory in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna, Jyotiraditya Scindia has been given charge of Communications and North Eastern Region. Culture and Tourism have been entrusted with former Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, while former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy has been allotted Heavy Industries and Steel.
A veteran Dalit face of the NDA, Jitan Ram Manjhi has become the Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. While Annapurna Devi will head the Women and Child Development ministry, G Kishan Reddy has been given Coal and Mines. Further, Giriraj Singh, Virendra Kumar and Rajiv Ranjan Singh have been appointed ministers of Textiles, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying respectively.
The 72-member Union Council of Ministers, which was administered the oath of office by President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday, included 30 Cabinet Ministers and 5 Ministers of State (independent charge) and 36 ministers of state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took oath for a third straight term as the head of a coalition government after two full tenures in which the BJP enjoyed a majority on its own.
Meanwhile, as many as 37 ministers have been dropped, prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane. The new Council of Ministers is only nine short of the maximum permissible strength of 81 and six less than the maximum of 78 ministers the Modi government had between 2019 and 2024.
Modi has retained power but with a surprising below-par show by the BJP in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls as its seat tally fell to 240 from 303, considerably short of the majority mark of 272. (Agencies)
