New Delhi, June 10: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday assigned portfolios to his 71 Council of Ministers, a day after taking oath of office for a historic third consecutive term.
The new Union Cabinet held its first meeting under the chairmanship of PM Modi at the PM’s residence in the evening following which the full list of portfolios was released.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi retained Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar in charge of the four high-profile Ministries – Home, Defence, Finance and External Affairs – respectively in his new Government.
Dharmendra Pradhan has retained the Education Ministry. Ashwini Vaishnaw has retained Railway Ministry.
Among new entrants to the Union Cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has got Agriculture and Rural Development Ministries, while BJP president J P Nadda has returned to the Cabinet with the Health Ministry. Notably, Nadda held the Health Ministry portfolio in the Modi Government’s first term before he took charge of the ruling BJP first as working president in 2019 and then as the full-fledged president in 2020.
Among the five members of the BJP’s allies in the Union Cabinet, JD (Secular)’s H D Kumaraswamy has been given Heavy Industries, and Steel Ministries, Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM-Secular) has been allocated Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry, and Lalan Singh (Janata Dal-United) Panchayati Raj, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Ministries.
TDP’s K Rammohan Naidu has got the Civil Aviation Ministry and LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan has been allocated the Food Processing Industries Ministry.
Among Ministers of State with Independent Charge, BJP ally and RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary has been allocated Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry and Shiv Sena leader Jadhav Prataprao Ganpatrao has been assigned Ayush Ministry.
