PM Modi govt 3.0: The swearing-in of Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Council of Ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan today (June 9) marked the beginning of Modi 3.0, the third straight term for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Several new faces were inducted into the cabinet of the Modi government. The first-timers from the BJP are Kamlesh Paswan (Uttar Pradesh), Sukanta Majumder (West Bengal), Durga Das Uikey (Madhya Pradesh), Raj Bhushan Chaudhary (Bihar), Satish Dubey (Bihar), Sanjay Seth (Jharkhand), C R Paatil (Gujarat), Bhagirath Chaudhary (Rajasthan), Harsh Malhotra (Delhi), V Somanna (Karnataka), Savitri Thakur (UP). Kamaljeet Sehrawat (Delhi), Prataprao Jadhav (Maharashtra), George Kurian (Kerala), Kirti Vardhan Singh (UP), Tokhan Sahu (Chhattisgarh), Bhupathi Raju Srinivasa Varma (Andhra Pradesh), Nimuben Bambhniya (Gujarat), Murlidhar Mohol (Maharashtra), Pabitra Margherita (Assam) and Bandi Sanjay Kumar (Telangana), are also among the BJP first-timers.
Here’s the full list of leaders:
1. Chirag Paswan
Newly elected Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) MP Chirag Paswan, an alliance partner of the Bharatiya Janata Party was sworn in as Minister in the third term of PM Narendra Modi government. Chirag Paswan, the son of the late former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, has had a significant political journey. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and was a member of various committees during his tenure. From September 2020 onwards, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Industry.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Chirag Paswan won from the Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency.In the 2014 elections, Chirag Paswan contested from the Jamui Lok Sabha seat. He won the seat, defeating the nearest rival, Sudhansu Shekhar Bhaskar of Rashtriya Janata Dal. Paswan retained his seat in the 2019 elections, defeating his nearest rival, Bhudeo Choudhary.’
2. Jayant Chaudhary
Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary takes oath as Minister of State (MoS) with Independent Charge. Jayant Chaudhary is a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh.
3. Shivraj Singh Chouhan
BJP’s veteran leader and four-time Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was on Sunday sworn in as a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet.The 65-year-old BJP leader was administered oath by President Droupadi Murmu at the swearing-in ceremony at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan.In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Chouhan campaigned extensively for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, where the party won all 29 Lok Sabha seats,Chouhan won the Vidisha seat by a record margin of 8,21,408 votes in the general elections 2024 on Tuesday, according to the Election Commission of India.The BJP leader received a massive mandate of 11,16,460 votes, while Congress’s Pratap Bhanu Sharma stood at second place and managed to get 2,95,052 votes.
4. Manohar Lal Khattar
From being an RSS worker once to being hand-picked as chief minister in 2014 to being replaced with his confidante ten years later, 70-year-old Manohar Lal Khattar has seen it all. He joined the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh as a permanent member in 1977 and stayed with it for 17 years before he was made a member of the BJP in 1994.
In 2014, he became the MLA for the first time and was tapped to become the chief minister of Haryana by the BJP. Ten years later, in March 2024, he was replaced by his confidante Nayab Singh Saini, to allow him a chance to become a Member of Parliament.
Contesting his first Lok Sabha polls from Karnal, Khattar defeated Congress’s Divyanshu Budhiraja by an impressive margin of over 2.35 lakh votes. According to some accounts, Khattar is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he worked with in the 1990s in party organisation. Khattar, a bachelor, worked for almost 40 years as an RSS pracharak. In 1996, Khattar started working with Modi, who was then the BJP in-charge of Haryana.
5. HD Kumaraswamy
Two-time chief minister and five-time MLA JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy has once again demonstrated his political acumen by bagging a seat in the union council of ministers, despite his party joining the BJP-led NDA just last year. Since the time of its founding in 1999, the JD(S) has never formed a government on its own in Karnataka, but has been in power twice in coalition with both national parties despite being a junior partner — for 20 months with the BJP from February 2006 and for 14 months with the Congress after the May 2018 assembly polls. Kumaraswamy was chief minister on both occasions.
The son of JD(S) patriarch and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda has now managed to secure a cabinet berth by allying with the BJP, at a time when his party was fighting the battle for survival.
6. Jitan Ram Manjhi
Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi, who has been a formidable force in Bihar’s political arena, was made a central minister on Sunday.
Manjhi’s rise has been nothing short of extraordinary. Since 2014, he has relentlessly pursued the Gaya Lok Sabha seat, facing one crushing defeat after another before finally wresting the seat this time. In 2014, he finished third while contesting as a JD(U) candidate. Undeterred, he tried again in 2019 under the HAM(S) banner, only to suffer a staggering loss to the JD(U). But this time, his perseverance paid off as he finally clinched the coveted seat. Now, at nearly 80 years old, Manjhi stands triumphant, defying the odds once again.
7. Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh
Senior JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan popularly known as Lalan Singh, who was inducted as a minister in the Narendra Modi government on Sunday, has been among Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s closest aides for many years. This Bhumihar leader has always been party supremo Kumar’s strength, as this caste in Bihar is known to have wide political influence despite its small size. Lalan was instrumental in stitching the JD(U)-RJD alliance in 2022. According to political observers, though Yadavs and Muslims are the traditional support bases of the RJD in certain areas of Munger, Jamalpur and Lahkisarai, Bhumihars and other upper-caste groups have been supporting Singh for the last several years.
8. Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu
From a promising young leader to the youngest-ever Central Cabinet Minister, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu’s journey exemplifies a blend of loyalty to his party, the TDP and unflinching commitment to public service. He was sworn in as a cabinet minister in the new cabinet of NDA on Sunday. At a young age of 37, K Ram Mohan Naidu who took oath as a cabinet Minister on Sunday is an MP from Srikakulam Lok Sabha constituency.
He is the son of late TDP leader K Yerran Naidu, former union minister in the United front government in 1996, who died in an accident more than a decade ago. Ram Mohan Naidu first entered the Parliament in 2014 from Srikakulam and repeated this feat for the third time in 2024 from the same constituency.
In the 2024 election, he defeated YSRCP’s P Tilak with a majority of over 3.2 lakh votes. Ram Mohan Naidu did his schooling in Delhi Public School, and studied engineering from Purdue University USA, followed by a postgraduate degree in MBA from Long Island.
9. Suresh Gopi
He was trolled during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, but despite the tactics by his rivals, action hero Suresh Gopi rose to national stardom in cinema style on June 4, winning the Thrissur seat on a BJP ticket and scripting history for the saffron party in Kerala. In other words, the saffron party’s decades-long struggle in Kerala — a state historically dominated by the Left and the Congress — and marked by numerous challenges since the Jan Sangh days, finally yielded fruit in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls through Gopi. Post-victory also, Gopi’s political career saw cinematic twists, with his initial reluctance to accept a ministerial berth in the government, citing his commitment to the people of Thrissur and agreements he had signed for a couple of movies, one of which is produced by the company of megastar Mammootty, whom he affectionately calls Mammookka.
10. Savitri Thakur
Savitri Thakur, who won from Dhar (Scheduled Tribe reserved) seat in Madhya Pradesh in the recently held general elections, was on Sunday sworn in as a minister of state in the Narendra Modi government.Thakur (46), a prominent woman tribal leader of the BJP in the state, won the Lok Sabha poll in 2014 but was denied a ticket in the 2019 edition. In the 2024 polls, she defeated the Congress’ Radheshyam Muvel by 2.18 lakh votes.
She was first elected as a member of the district panchayat in 2003 and later became its president. After holding various party posts at the state and national level, she was given a ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
11. Jitin Prasada
Jitin Prasada won the Pilibhit Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh by defeating Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Bhagwat Saran Gangwar with a margin of 1,64,935 votes. Jitin Prasada was once considered as among Rahul Gandhi’s ‘young Turks’ and was a minister in successive Manmohan Singh governments but defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2021, where he has again established himself as a prominent Brahmin face of Uttar Pradesh. The 50-year-old returned to the Centre on Sunday after he took oath as a member of the Council of Ministers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His father Jitendra Prasada was a Congress veteran whose fortunes plunged following his decision to contest against Sonia Gandhi for the post of party president in 2000. Prasada, who joined the BJP before the 2022 UP Assembly elections and was made an MLC, holds the Public Works Department (PWD) department in the Yogi Adityanath government.
12. Bandi Sanjay Kumar
Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who took oath as minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet on Sunday, weathered political storms and intra-party bickering before he could successfully establish himself as a firebrand BJP leader in Telangana. The foundation for the political rise of Kumar could be traced to his days of student politics in the Akhil Bhaaratiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, with which he was associated since his childhood. With his grooming in the Right wing outfits providing him a clear ideological launchpad and direction, he gradually became popular as an aggressive Saffron leader. Kumar’s ‘take the bull by the horns’ style, ensured victory in a considerable number of seats in the Hyderabad civic polls during the previous BRS regime, which gave a clear signal that the saffron party can be an alternative to the then ruling party.
13. Dr Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani
With family assets at over Rs 5,700 crore, Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, the newly elected richest MP in Lok Sabha, who was sworn in as minister on Sunday in the NDA government, hails from a small village, Burripalem, in Andhra Pradesh. He was sworn in as minister of state. A medical doctor, he stuck with TDP through thick and thin and remained in the good books of party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu and no wonder, he has now secured a ministerial berth in the union cabinet. Pemmasani defeated YSRCP’s Kilari Venkata Rosaiah, by a margin of over 3.4 lakh votes. Hailing from a rural area, he went on to become a teacher-physician at the Johns Hopkins University – Sinai Hospital and also established his own firm UWorld (online learning and study resources platform), a fascinating journey.
14. Sanjay Seth
Businessman and politician Sanjay Seth from Ranchi, who has led an extraordinarily eventful career, was sworn in as a minister in the Narendra Modi government on Sunday. He began his political journey as a fiery student leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1976 and became a parliamentarian in 2019. Seth’s life reads like a saga of relentless activism and daring protests. He proudly recounts being arrested multiple times since his student days, each time for championing various social issues. In a dramatic turn of events in 1992, he spent 25 days in the formidable Ranchi Central Jail, following the arrest of BJP patriarch LK Advani during his infamous Ram Rath Yatra. Born on August 25, 1959, Seth is armed with an impressive array of qualifications- B.Com, LLB, and PGDBM degrees. His leadership credentials were honed as the president of the Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries.
15. Tokhan Sahu
Tokhan Sahu, a first-time Member of Parliament and a surprise addition to Narendra Modi’s new cabinet, has been active in politics for the past three decades, though he has maintained a low profile throughout his career. Sahu’s political journey began in the early 1990s as a village panchayat representative. His rise to a Union minister’s position has been unexpected, especially with the availability of other prominent leaders like Brijmohan Agrawal, Vijay Baghel, and Santosh Pandey from Chhattisgarh.
Sahu took oath as a Minister of State in the Union cabinet on Sunday. Belonging to the influential Sahu backward community, which comprises about 14 per cent of Chhattisgarh’s OBC population, Sahu is considered an undisputed leader within his community.
16. CR Patil
CR Patil won the Navsari Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat by defeating Congress candidate Naishadhbhai Bhupatbhai Desai with a margin of 7,73,551 votes.
17. Ram Nath Thakur
18. Veeranna Somanna
Veeranna Somanna won the Tumkur Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka by defeating Congress candidate SP Muddahanumegowda with a margin of 1,75,594 votes.
19. Kirtivardhan Singh
Kirtivardhan Singh won the Gonda Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh by defeating Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Shreya Verma with a margin of 46,224 votes.
20. Kamlesh Paswan
Following the footsteps of his father, who was assassinated while addressing a public function, Kamlesh Paswan took forward his legacy by registering a fourth consecutive win from the Bansgaon (SC) Lok Sabha seat in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. On Sunday, the newly elected Lok Sabha MP stepped into a higher political orbit, when he took the oath of office and secrecy as a Union minister of state (MoS). A fourth time Lok Sabha MP from Bansgaon (SC), 47-year-old Paswan, who hails from the Pasi community, had defeated Sadal Prasad of the Congress by a margin of a little over 3,000 votes.
21. Bhagirath Choudhary
Bhagirath Choudhary won the Ajmer Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan by defeating Congress candidate Ramchandra Choudhary with a margin of 3,29,991 votes.
22. Satish Chandra Dubey
Satish Chandra Dubey is a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar.
23. Ravneet Singh Bittu
Former Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu is the only leader from among those who switched from the grand old party to the BJP just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to have made it to the council of ministers even though he lost the polls from Punjab’s Ludhiana. Bittu took oath as a Minister of State at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Sunday. Besides Bittu, Jitin Prasada and Jyotiraditya Scindia are also former Congress leaders but they had switched sides much earlier during the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While Prasad has been inducted as a Union Minister of State after serving as a minister in the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh government, Scindia has been retained in the Cabinet. Raj Bhushan Choudhari, who was earlier in the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and joined the BJP in 2020, was also sworn in as a Minister of State.
24. Durgadas Uikey
Durgadas Uikey won the Betul Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh by defeating Congress candidate Ramu Tekam with a margin of 3,79,761 votes.
25. Raksha Nikhil Khadse
With her induction into the Union cabinet as a minister of state, BJP MP from Maharashtra, Raksha Khadse on Sunday expressed her readiness to accept any responsibility assigned to her by the party. Raksha, elected for the third consecutive term as an MP from the Raver Lok Sabha seat in North Maharashtra, stated, “I am ready for any responsibility given by the party.” Her father-in-law and former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse expressed immense happiness over Raksha finding a place in the Modi 3.0 government for the first time. “I was never so happy in my life than today when Raksha received a call informing her induction in the Union cabinet. It is the biggest thing in her life. I cannot control my tears,” said Eknath Khadse, a former BJP leader.
26. Sukanta Majumdar
Sukanta Majumdar won the Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal by defeating Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate Biplab Mitra with a margin of 10,386 votes.
27. Raj Bhushan Choudhary
Raj Bhushan Choudhary won the Muzaffarpur Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar by defeating Congress candidate Ajay Nishad with a margin of 2,34,927 votes.
28. Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav
Shiv Sena’s Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav won the Buldhana Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra by defeating Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackrey) candidate Narendra Dagdu Khedekar with a margin of 29,479 votes.
29. Bhupathi Raju Srinivasa Varma
Bhupathi Raju Srinivasa Varma won the Narsapuram Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh by defeating Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) candidate Umabala Guduri with a margin of 2,76,802 votes. B Srinivasa Varma, who took oath as minister on Sunday, is a grassroots BJP leader from Bhimavaram, the rice bowl of Andhra Pradesh, and he started his political journey from the party’s yuva morcha, over three decades ago. The 57-year-old leader from West Godavari district became BJYM district president in 1991 and over the years, he has held party positions including Bhimavaram town president, West Godavari district secretary and state secretary. He organised BJP state executive meetings in Bhimavaram four times and also played a role in the victories of UV Krishnam Raju in 1999 and G Ganga Raju in 2014 from the Narsapuram Lok Sabha constituency.
30. Harsh Malhotra
Harsh Malhotra won the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in NCT of Delhi by defeating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Kuldeep Kumar with a margin of 93,663 votes.
31. Pabitra Margherita
Pabitra Margherita is a Rajya Sabha member from Assam. First a magazine editor and then a filmmaker, Assam’s Rajya Sabha MP Pabitra Margherita was on Sunday inducted as a minister in the Narendra Modi government. A known name in the cultural sphere of Assam, Margherita joined politics in 2014 by becoming a member of the BJP. He was soon appointed as a state spokesperson of the party. He has served in different party positions and was also the chairman of Jyoti Chitraban, a government-run film studio. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in March 2022.
32. Nimuben Bambhaniya
Nimuben Bambhaniya, one of the three women candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to win the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat, has been inducted into the Union cabinet as a minister of state. The 57-year-old defeated Aam Aadmi Party’s Umesh Makwana by a huge margin of 4.55 lakh votes in the Bhavnagar constituency. She served as the mayor of Bhavnagar for two terms between 2009-10 and 2015-18 and was the vice president of the BJP Mahila Morcha’s state unit between 2013 and 2021. A former teacher, Bambhaniya joined the BJP in 2004 and entered electoral politics by contesting and winning the civic polls for three terms. She hails from the OBC Koli community. Her husband runs a school in Bhavnagar.
33. Murlidhar Mohol
Murlidhar Mohol won the Pune Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra by defeating Congress candidate Ravindra Hemraj Dhangekar with a margin of 1,23,038 votes.
34. George Kurian
The ministerial berth of Kerala BJP General Secretary George Kurian in the third Narendra Modi government is indeed a reward for a loyal party worker who has been active in the saffron party movement post-Emergency in the late 1970s. He has been with the BJP since it was founded in 1980. Hailing from Kottayam district of Kerala, Kurian, a committed BJP worker who held the party flag high during its ups and downs, has never been identified with any of the factions of the saffron party in the state.