New Delhi: As Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi is set to take oath on Sunday along with his Council of Ministers, some members of his previous cabinet have been dropped.
Most of the Union ministers in the previous Modi-led government, including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Nirmala Sitharaman, Mansukh Mandaviya and others, were at the PM’s residence, who were invited ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of his third-term. However, a few others, including Union minister of information and broadcasting and youth affairs and sports Anurag Thakur, Union minister of women and child development Smriti Irani, were not there.
Lawmakers who are set to take oath as ministers later in the day on Sunday were invited to the PM’s residence for tea, a custom he has followed before the cabinet formation exercise since 2014.
Thakur won Himachal Pradesh’s Hamirpur seat for the fifth consecutive time, defeating his nearest Congress rival Satpal Raizada by a margin of 182,357 votes. His name finds a miss from the list of ministers in Modi’s new cabinet.
Irani, who secured multiple positions in Modi 1.0 and Modi 2.0, has been left out from Modi 3.0 after her defeat from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by a margin of 167,196 votes to Congress loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma. There are, however, speculations that she could be brought in as a Rajya Sabha member.
Another name on the list is that of Rajeev Chandrashekhar. He has been the Union minister of state for electronics and information technology and state for skill development and entrepreneurship in the previous cabinet. He conceded defeat against Congress’ Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat by a very close margin of 16,077 votes.
{{/usCountry}}Another name on the list is that of Rajeev Chandrashekhar. He has been the Union minister of state for electronics and information technology and state for skill development and entrepreneurship in the previous cabinet. He conceded defeat against Congress’ Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat by a very close margin of 16,077 votes.
{{/usCountry}}Another is Parshottam Rupala, who was given the ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying after the cabinet reshuffling in 2021.
During the campaign leading up to the 2024 general election, Rupala fell into a controversy with the Kshatriya community. On March 22, addressing a rally in Rajkot, Rupala commented on erstwhile ‘maharajas’ being subjects of the British and foreign rulers. This ignited rage among the Rajputs, who saw it as an attack on their community’s pride and valour.
Despite this controversy, Rupala secured a comfortable victory in Rajkot. He won by a margin of 484,260 votes against his Congress rival Paresh Dhanani. His victory, however, could not materialise into reclaiming his seat in the Union cabinet.
While many leaders have been kept out of the list for now, there could be further additions with the expansion of the cabinet.
In the recently concluded general elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged 240 seats, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured a majority of 293 seats out of 543 Lok Sabha seats.
Modi will take oath as the PM for the third consecutive term, becoming the second leader after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
President Droupadi Murmu will administer the oath of office and secrecy to Modi and his cabinet ministers at 7:15pm on Sunday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Forecourt.