Modi sworn in as PM for third term; Bihar & UP score big, 72 take oath

New Delhi: Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister on Sunday for a record-equalling third term, heading a 72-member Union Council of Ministers that put emphasis on continuity, youth and experience while also rewarding partners in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in the Modi 2.0 cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of secrecy and office to Modi and 30 Cabinet ministers, five Ministers of State with Independent charge, and 36 Ministers of State. Portfolios of the new ministers were yet to be announced till late tonight.

There were 33 firsttimers with six from wellknown political families. They included three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and HD Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).

The new faces also included Suresh Gopi, the actor-turned-politician who scripted history by becoming the BJP's first Lok Sabha MP from Kerala. The strength of the Modi ministry including the prime minister stood at 72 as against the maximum limit of 81.

The first meeting of the Modi cabinet is likely to be held on Monday evening at the Prime Minister's Lok Kalyan Marg residence, sources said.

All states which send four or more MPs to the 543-member Lok Sabha have found representation in the Council of Ministers besides smaller states like Goa and Arunachal Pradesh.

Bihar has scored big as among the eight ministers from the state four were given cabinet rank, including BJP's Dalit allies Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi, underscoring the ruling NDA's efforts to deepen its connect with the Scheduled Castes whose support to it appeared to have weakened during the polls.

Uttar Pradesh got nine berths, including one in the cabinet in Rajnath Singh while Maharashtra, which goes to the assembly polls in October, has its six MPs in the Council of Ministers.

Seven women figure among the 72 ministers, less than 10 per cent of its total strength. Some ministers, like Hardeep Singh Puri and S Jaishankar, have been elected from states different from the ones they hail from.

At least 42 ministers were from the Other Backward Class(OBC), Scheduled Caste(SC) and Scheduled Tribe(ST) category. There was no Muslim representation in the new coalition government.

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP failed to win a simple majority, making it dependent on allies whose MPs also took the oath of office as Cabinet ministers. BJP president J P Nadda also returned to the cabinet after five years.

As many as 37 union ministers were dropped from the government in Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.

Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge was present, even as several opposition leaders skipped the ceremony.

Top leaders from India's neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean region -- Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Bhutanese PM Tshering Tobgay and Vice-President of Seychelles Ahmed Afif -- were special guests at the function.

37 ministers from outgoing govt dropped in Modi 3.0

As many as 37 ministers have been dropped from the government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.

Parshottam Rupala, Arjun Munda, RK Singh and Mahendra Natha Pandey, also held cabinet positions in the second Modi government but were not retained in the Council of Ministers that took oath on Sunday Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who was the Minister of State for Skill Development, Electronics and IT and Jalshakti, lost the election from Thiruvananthapuram and did not find a slot.

List of Council of Ministers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Cabinet Ministers

1. Rajnath Singh

2. Amit Shah

3. Nitin Gadkari

4. J P Nadda

5. Shivraj Singh Chouhan

6. Nirmala Sitharaman

7. S Jaishankar

8. ML Khattar

9. HD Kumaraswamy

10. Piyush Goyal

11. Dharmendra Pradhan

12. Jitan Ram Manjhi

13. Rajiv Ranjan Singh

14. Sarbananda Sonowal

15. Virendra Kumar

16. K Ram Mohan Naidu

17. Pralhad Joshi

18. Jual Oram

19. Giriraj Singh

20. Ashwini Vaishnaw

21. Jyotiraditya Scindia

22. Bhupender Yadav

23. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

24. Annapurna Devi

25. Kiren Rijiju

26. Hardeep Singh Puri

27. Mansukh Mandaviya

28. G Kishan Reddy

29. Chirag Paswan

30. CR Paatil

Ministers of State (Independent charge)

1. Rao Inderjit Singh

2. Jitendra Singh

3. Arjun Ram Meghwal

4. Prataprao Jadhav

5. Jayant Chaudhary

Ministers of State

1. Jitin Prasada

2. Shripad Naik

3. Pankaj Chaudhary

4. Krishan Pal Gurjar

5. Ramdas Athawale

6. Ram Nath Thakur

7. Nityanand Rai

8. Anupriya Parel

9. V Sommana

10. Pemmasani Chandrasekhar

11. SP Singh Baghel

12. Shobha Karandlaje

13. Kirthi Vardhan Singh

14. B L Varma

15. Shantanu Thakur

16. Suresh Gopi

17. L Murugan

18. Ajay Tamta

19. Bandi Sanjay Kumar

20. Kamlesh Paswan

21. Bhagirath Choudhary

22. Satish Dubey

23. Sanjay Seth

24. Ravneet Singh Bittu

25. Durga Das Uikey

26. Raksha Khadse

27. Sukanta Majumdar

28. Savitri Thakur

29. Tokhan Sahu

30. Rajbhushan Chaudhary

31. Bupathi Raju Srinivas Varma

32. Harsh Malhotra

33. Nimuben Bhamaria

34. Murlidhar Mohol

35. George Kurian

36. Pabitra Margherita (PTI)