New Cabinet ministers of Modi government: The new NDA government at the Centre will be a mix of the old and new faces. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah held a key meeting to select the names of the new NDA ministers in Delhi today, a day after a marathon 3-hour do on Wednesday. And as per the advice and recommendations of the duo, the selected ministers received telephone calls from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s decision to opt out of the Modi government on health grounds has fuelled speculation about who will get his coveted portfolio though Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had been interim finance minister ahead of the union budget 2019.
Here is the list of leaders who got calls from the Prime Minister’s Office.
1) Nitin Gadkari: The 67-year-old Maharashtra politician was Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways in the previous Modi government. He won from Nagpur by a margin of around 1.97 lakh votes. He was up against Congress’s Nana Patole.
2) Sushma Swaraj: The much-anticipated leader who was expected to be out of the new cabinet received a call from BJP President Amit Shah as she gears-up for a new role this time. She’s likely to be given the charge of Home Ministry. Previously she was assigned with the Ministry of External Affairs job. Swaraj has been a seven-time elected member of Parliament.
3) Krishan Pal Gurjar: Gurjar was Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment.
4) Dharmendra Pradhan: Pradhan was minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship in the previous NDA government. He was also the pointsman for Odisha.
5) Parshottam Rupala: Rupala was Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in the Modi government.
7) Suresh Angadi:Angadi is likely to take oath for the first time as a minister in the new Modi Cabinet. BJP leader Suresh Angadi won the Belgaum Lok Sabha constituency thrice in a row after Congress’ Amarsinh Patil won the seat in the 1999 elections.
8) D V Sadananda Gowda: D V Sadananda Gowda had handled three portfolios in the Modi cabinet – Minister of Railways, Minister of Law, and Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Sadananda’s closest rival and Congress candidate Krishna Byre Gowda trailed him by over a lakh votes. Sadananda got 8.2 lakh votes or 52.83 per cent of the total votes polled.
9) Piyush Goyal: Piyush Goyal was minister of Railways and Coal in the Government of India in the previous Modi government.
10) Jitendra Singh: Singh was the Minister of State for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, and Department of Space in the previous Modi government.
11) Prahlad Singh Patel:: Patel, who was minister of state for coal in 3rd Vajpayee Cabinet, is a Member of Parliament from Damoh Loksabha Constituency in Madhya Pradesh.
12) Ramchandra Prasad Singh: JD(U) leader Singh is a native of Nalanda district and was a UP cadre IAS officer before joining politics. He was also principal secretary to Nitish Kumar.
13) Ravi Shankar Prasad: Prasad was Union Minister for Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology in the Government of India in the previous Modi government. Prasad won Patna Sahib seat by defeating Shatrughan Sinha by 2.84 lakh votes.
12) Prakash Javadekar. (Javadekar was Minister of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.)
14) Ram Vilas Paswan: Lok Janshakti Party chief Paswan, who is eight-time Lok Sabha member and former Rajya Sabha MP, was Cabinet Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the Government of India in the previous Modi government.
15) Nityanand Rai Yadav: BJP leader Rai defeated RLSP chief and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha by a margin of 27,7278 votes in Bihar’s Ujiarpur Lok Sabha constituency.
16) Kailash Choudhary: In Rajasthan’s Barmer, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Kailash Choudhary defeated veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s son Manvendra Singh, who contested on a Congress ticket. Choudhary is a former Member of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly who represented the Baytoo Vidhan Sabha constituency of the state.
17) Babul Supriyo: Playback singer-turned-politician Supriyo, who was elected as Member of Parliament from Asansol LS seat in Bengal, was a Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, in the Union Council of Ministers in India in the previous Modi government.
18) Harsimrat Kaur Badal: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat was the Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing in the Government of India and member of parliament from Bathinda. She defended the Bathinda seat in southern Punjab that voted for the SAD leader in 2009 and 2014, and for the party in five of the last six elections. She faced the Congress’s Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Baljinder Kaur of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
19) Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: BJP spokesperson and the party’s minority face Naqvi was Union Minister of Minority Affairs in the previous government.
20) Giriraj Singh: Singh was Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the previous Modi government. He defeated CPI’s Kanhaiya Kumar by a record four lakh votes in Bihar’s Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency.
21) Smriti Zubin Irani: The actor-turned-politician was minister for HRD ministry and Textiles ministery under the previous Modi government. She managed to bag the Amethi seat, known as a Gandhi bastion, in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. Smriti defeated Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi LS seat by 55,000 votes.
22) Rajnath Singh: Union Home Minister in the previous government, Singh is known for his tough stance on national security. Time and again, Singh has expressed his disliking for the anti-national forces and has been rough when it comes to taking policy decisions. He is BJP’s Lucknow constituency candidate who won with more than 50% votes in this general election. It’s anticipated that Singh might be given charge of external affairs ministry in Modi Cabinet 2.0.
23) Kiren Rijiju: He was the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs in the BJP-led NDA’s 2014 cabinet and is expected to be given charge of another ministry in Modi Cabinet 2.0. Rijiju is BJP’s prominent face in the Northeast and represents Arunachal West constituency in the Parliament.
24) Thawar Chand Gehlot: Gehlot was Social Justice and Empowerment Minister in the previous Modi government.
25) Gajendra Shekhawat: He held the charge of State Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in the previous government and is a Jodhpur constituency representative for the BJP.
26) Ramdas Athawale: Dalit leader and Republican Party of India (RPI) chief Ramdas Athawale, who was a minister for social justice and empowerment in the previous Narendra Modi Cabinet, has received a call from the PMO. Earlier, Athawale had expressed faith in getting a ministry in cabinet of Narendra Modi. He represents Maharashtra in the Rajya Sabha.
27) Sanjay Dhotre: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sanjay Dhotre has been representing Akola constituency of Maharashtra since 2004. Dhotre defeated Congress’ Hidayatullah Barakatullah Patel by a huge margin of votes. Dhotre got 5, 44, 444 votes which is 49.53 per cent.
28) Kishan Reddy: The BJP wants to induct Secunderabad BJP MP Kishan Reddy in the new Modi Cabinet to strengthen its position in Telangana. Kishan Reddy contested from the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, which was held by Dattatreya, and defeated debutant Talasani Sai Krishna with a margin of more than 62,000 votes.
More names of potential ministers of the new NDA Cabinet will be added soon. The NDA has also declared the names of Rajnath Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Kishan Reddy PK Singh, Ramdas Athawale and many more leaders.
