NEW DELHI: 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. Over 50 ministers joined him in the swearing-in held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Apart from Amit Shah, Singh, Gadkari, the other top leaders who were sworn-in as Union ministers included D V Sadananda Gowda, Nirmala Sitharaman and Ram Vilas Paswan.
Others who took oath of office, included 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 and Giriraj Singh.
Leaders of BIMSTEC countries including President of Bangladesh Abdul Hamid, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, President of Myanmar U Win Myint and Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering also attended the gala event.
Kyrgyz President and current chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, and Mauritius PM Pravind Kumar Jugnauth also attended the event.
The BJP-led NDA returned to power with a massive 352 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP won 303 seats on its own.Nearly 30 from the previous Council of Ministers have been dropped from the team this time.
BJP President Amit Shah joined the government, and Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati and Sumitra Mahajan were not part of the team, with the last three opting to stay out of the electoral contest. Shah is tipped to be finance minister.Jagat Prakash Nadda does not find mention on the list of ministers: He could be the next BJP president.
The previous government’s civil aviation team — Jayant Sinha and Suresh Prabhu — was dropped. Also dropped was Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore.
PM Modi’s cabinet:
