New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed the refresh button and inducted 20 new faces in his Council of Ministers rewarding giant killers in the Lok Sabha election and dropping some of the most visible faces of his team — finance minister Arun Jaitley, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, tribal affairs minister Jual Oram and commerce minister Suresh Prabhu.
While Jaitley’s omission had become public Wednesday as he opted out on health grounds, the absence of Sushma and Prabhu came as a surprise.
A bigger surprise, however, was the inclusion of former foreign secretary S Jaishankar into the cabinet.
In the last five years, despite serious ailment, Sushma had won accolades for turning foreign office into people’s ministry and Suresh Prabhu was seen as the “to go” man handling key ministries including railways.
The tallest among the first-time ministers is party president Amit Shah who was seated third in the row of seniority after the PM and Rajnath Singh. He was followed by Nitin Gadkari and Sadanand Gowda.
The first indication of Amit Shah’s progression into the government had come when he decided to contest Lok Sabha elections from Gandhinagar. After scripting historic victory for the BJP in the election, he was seen as a natural claimant for a prominent position.
The Modi-Shah team will now be in play in the government after scoring a series of electoral wins.
Those who fought valiantly in the election were rewarded even if they were first-time MPs.
First-time MP from Secunderabad G Krishan Reddy was awarded with MoS berth. Kailash Choudhary, a young BJP leader who fought a tough battle in Barmer against Madhavendra Singh of the Congress (formerly with BJP), was a rewarded with MoS rank. Debashree Choudhary, who won from Raiganj in West Bengal in a tough fight, is now a minister.
Pratap Chandra Sarangi, first-time MP from Balasore, got the maximum cheers as he is known on the internet for his humble lifestyle, has been made a minister. Even among allies, Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena who defeated Milind Deora of Congress in South Mumbai, has joined the cabinet. Some promiment names like Rajyavardhan Rathore, Jayant Sinha and Maneka Gandhi have been dropped.
Earlier, Modi was sworn in along with BJP president Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and former foreign secretary S Jaishankar.
Modi, 68, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony at the forecourt of majestic Rashtraparti Bhavan.
“Honoured to serve India!” tweeted Modi after taking the oath for the second consecutive term.
Apart from Shah, Singh, Gadkari, the other top leaders who were sworn-in as cabinet ministers included DV Sadananda Gowda, Nirmala Sitharaman and Ram Vilas Paswan.
While the inclusion of Shah, seen as BJP’s key strategist who helped the party to expand its base after taking over the reins of the party in 2014, was much speculated, Jaishankar, considered close to Modi, was a surprise pick.
Some of the key ministers in the previous Modi government, including Sushma Swaraj, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Maneka Gandhi were not part of the new council of ministers.
Top Opposition leaders including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, corporate honchos, film stars, chief ministers and a galaxy of leaders from BIMSTEC countries were part of the nearly 8,000 guests at the ceremony.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, skipped the swearing in ceremony owing to other pre-occupations.
Others who took oath of office as cabinet ministers are: Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Thanwar Chand Gehlot, Ramesh Pokhriyal, Arjun Munda, Smriti Irani, Harsh Vardhan, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Prahlad Joshi, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Arvind Sawant, Giriraj Singh and Gajendra Shekhawat.
Those who took oath as minister of state with independent charge are: Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Rao Inderjit Singh, Shripad Yesso Naik, Jitendra Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Prahalad Singh Patel, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh L Mandaviya.
The minister of state are: Faggan Singh Kulaste, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Arjun Ram Meghwal, VK Singh, Krishan Pal, Danve Raosaheb Dadarao, G Kishan Reddy, Parshottam Rupala, Ramdas Athawale, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Babul Supriyo, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao, Anurag Singh Thakur, Angadi Suresh Channabasappa, Nityanand Rai, Rattan Lal Kataria, V Muraleedharan, Renuka Singh Saruta, Som Parkash, Rameswar Teli, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Kailash Choudhary, Debasree Chaudhuri.
There are 24 Cabinet ministers and as many MoS’ while nine others were given MoS with independent charge rank.