In PM Modi’s new cabinet, master strategist Amit Shah is big entry

Sources told Hindustan Times that Amit Shah is likely to be given the finance ministry after Arun Jaitley ruled himself out.

Updated on: May 18, 2020, 21:53:52 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Amit Shah, the BJP’s master strategist who scripted the party’s expansion over the last few years, is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new team that has taken oath this evening.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah signs the documents after taking oath during a swearing-in ceremony, at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, on Thursday, May 30, 2019. (Ajay Aggarwal/HT PHOTO)

Shah, 54, took oath right after PM Modi and his most senior minister Rajnath Singh as dusk fell over the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan in Delhi. The ceremony continued for the next two hours as 57 ministers in PM Modi’s team took oath of office and secrecy.

Amit Shah later thanked the prime minister for reposing his faith in him. “I assure you that I will put my best efforts to serve our people and country,” he tweeted, describing PM Modi’s “leadership and continued support” as a source of inspiration.

Shah, who was Gujarat’s junior home minister when Narendra Modi was the state’s chief minister, will be assigned a key portfolio and will be a part of the crucial Cabinet Committee of Security in the new government, which has in it the government’s four top cabinet ministers.

Amit Shah has been allocated the Home Ministry, replacing Rajnath Singh who has moved to Defence Ministry.

Also Watch | BJP strategist Amit Shah takes oath, joins PM Modi’s cabinet

Jagat Prakash Nadda, health minister in the outgoing government and who camped for months in Uttar Pradesh to execute the BJP’s poll strategy, could slip into Amit Shah’s shoes in the party.

Also Read: BJP’s Amit Shah the strategist now emerges as leader of masses

Amit Shah is seen to have PM Modi’s complete trust and has been in discussions with him on the shape and size of the new council of ministers over the last few days. On Thursday morning after the BJP’s two most-senior sealed the list of ministers, it was Amit Shah who made the phone calls to party lawmakers to tell them about the decision on their induction.

Amit Shah has completed a full term of three years as the BJP chief, and the party’s constitution allows him another term of an equal number of years. The political party is now the world’s largest -- it rules 14 out of 29 states, either on its own or with allies.

Shah’s term as BJP president ended in January, and he was given an extension till after the parliamentary election is over. The process to elect the next party chief will take about three to four months.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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