On 30/5/2019 at 7 p.m. Narendra Modi took oath as Prime Minister and after him 57 others took oaths as ministers. Swearing-in ended at 9.04 p.m. Some BJP allies got one ministry each. JD(U) refused to be part of cabinet as it did not get more than one ministry. Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj were not in the ministry for health reasons. Others who were in previous cabinet were missing for different reasons. There were new entries.
Maneka Gandhi, Uma Bharti, Jayant Sinha, Suresh Prabhu, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Jagat Prakash Nadda, K. J. Alphons and some others were out. Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal was out. She was Minister of State in Health and Family Welfare Ministry.
It is reported that K. C. Tyagi of JD(U) had met Amit Shah and demanded that NDA should have a convener and an office as it was during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s time. George Fernandes was convenor during Vajpayee’s time. When Vajpayee was PM, BJP did not have a majority of its own. It needed allies. In 1999 AIADMK pulled out of alliance and government fell. Modi did not need allies after he won in 2014 and BJP had 282 seats. This time BJP has 303 seats. Nitish Kumar is unreliable. He can switch sides. He said JD(U)wanted proportional representation in cabinet, BJP offered symbolic representation.
Rajnath Singh is Defence Minister. He was Home Minister.
Amit Shah is in the cabinet. He is Home Minister. Successful as BJP President. BJP recovered in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh after losing state elections. Gained in Karnataka, West Bengal and Orissa.
Nirmala Sitharaman is Finance Minister. She was Defence Minister. There was speculation that Piyush Goyal will be Finance Minister.
S. Jaishankar is External Affairs Minister as expected.
Piyush Goyal is Railways and Commerce and Industries Minister.
Pralhad Joshi gets Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines.
Arvind Sawant from Shiv Sena is Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise. Previous minister was Anant Geete of Shiv Sena who lost Lok Sabha election.
Kiren Rijiju is Minister of State with Independent Charge of Youth Affairs and Sports and also MoS Minority Affairs. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was MoS with Independent Charge of Youth Affairs and Sports.
General (Retd) Vijay Kumar Singh is shifted to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as MoS. He was MoS External Affairs.
Babul Supriyo is MoS – Environment, Forest and Climate Change. He was MoS – Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise.
Anurag Thakur is MoS – Finance and Corporate Affairs. He is fourth time MP. He was BCCI President for some months.
Hardeep Singh Puri as MoS with Independent Charge has Civil Aviation in addition to previously held Housing and Urban Affairs.
Not much change in portfolios of other ministers who were in previous government.
The Council of Minister consists of Prime Minister, 24 Cabinet Ministers, 9 Ministers of State with Independent Charge and 24 Ministers of State.
Someone from BJP will be Speaker. Deputy Speaker may be from a non-NDA party.
