Ahead of the much-anticipated cabinet expansion, 14 Ministers tendered their resignation to make way for the new inductees.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Human Resources Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and Babul Supriyo who was Mos for Environment also resigned.

According to sources, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank expressed his unwillingness to continue in his post due to health reasons. He will no longer be a part of the Cabinet. Also, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad resigned from Union Cabinet on Wednesday.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar's resignation is also a big surprise because he was the government's spokesperson.

Meanwhile, Debasree Chaudhuri, a minister from West Bengal who also resigned as the union minister, might be given an important organisational post in West Bengal, sources said.

Which ministers have resigned?

Here's a list

Health Minister – Dr Harsh Vardhan

HRD Minister - Ramesh Pokhriyal

Labour Minister - Santosh Gangwar

Prakash Javdekar- Environment

Ravi Shankar Prasad-Law and Electronics, Information and Technology

Babul Supriyo - (Mos) Environment

Pratap Sarangi - (Mos) Fisheries

Sanjay Dhotre - (Mos) Education

D V Sadananda Gowda- Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister

Rao Saheb Danve Patil, Debashree Chaudhuri, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre, Rattan Lal Kataria are other ministers who have resigned.

Who’s Promoted

Anurag Thakur

Parshottam Rupala

G Kishan Reddy

Kiren Rijiju

Hardeep Singh Puri

Mansukh Mandaviya

43 members, including old and new ministers, are sworn in this evening. The new cabinet turned out to be the most inclusive with record representation of SC, ST members. With this, Council of Ministers have 12 members drawn from SC community; eight members from ST category; 27 OBC Ministers of which five members hold the cabinet rank; five ministers from various minority communities; 11 women ministers including two with cabinet rank.

29 Ministers represent other communities like the Brahmin, Bhumihar, Kayasth, Kshatriya, Lingayat, Patel, Maratha and Reddy castes.

Special focus has been on bringing down the age average rate of the Modi cabinet to give it a young look. Fresh inductees include 14 ministers below the age of 50, including six in the cabinet.

The new look Team Modi carries vast administrative experience and a vast majority of them have experience of being ministers in state governments.

This is the first big reshuffle of Modi 2.0 and it came in the wake of 2022 election scenario with five states, including Uttar Pradesh headed for polls. The reshuffle is dominated by representatives from UP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg with BJP MPs earlier today, ahead of union cabinet expansion. He brought in 36 new faces to his Union Cabinet and promoted seven existing ministers. Meanwhile, 12 top ministers — including Harsh Vardhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar — have been dropped from the Cabinet.

A total of 43 political leaders have been sworn-in as union ministers, and some are being promoted.

Among big names, Jyotiraditya Scindia was made the Union civil aviation minister, Mansukh Mandaviya got the health ministry. Pashupati Kumar Paras, Bhupender Yadav, Anupriya Patel, Shobha Karandlaje, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ajay Bhatt and Anurag Thakur also took oath of office and secrecy.

Here is the final list of 43 cabinet ministers

 * Bhagwanth Khuba

* Kapil Moreshwar Patil

* Pratima Bhoumik

* Subhas Sarkar

* Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad

* Rajkumar Ranjan Singh

* Bharati Pravin Pawar

* Bishweswar Tudu

* Shantanu Thakur

* Munjapara Mahendrabhai

* John Barla

* L. Murugan

* Nisith Pramanik

* Pankaj Choudhary

* Anupriya Singh Patel

* Satya Pal Singh Baghel

* Rajeev Chandrasekhar

* Shobha Karandlaje

* Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma

* Darshana Vikram Jardosh

* Meenakashi Lekhi

* Annpurna Devi

* A. Narayanaswamy

* Kaushal Kishore

* Ajay Bhatt

* B. L. Verma

* Ajay Kumar

* Chauhan Devusinh

* Narayan Tatu Rane

* Sarbananda Sonowal

* Virendra Kumar

* Jyotiraditya M Scindia

* Ramchandra Prasad Singh

* Ashwini Vaishnaw

* Pashu Pati Kumar Paras

* Kiren Rijiju

* Raj Kumar Singh

* Hardeep Singh Puri

* Mansukh Mandaviya

* Bhupender Yadav

* Parshottam Rupala

* G. Kishan Reddy

* Anurag Singh Thakur

“After a long time, we’ve a cabinet minister from Assam. & happiness is doubled when we’ve an experienced person like Sarbananda Sonowal. It’s matter of pride to have people from N-E in Union cabinet. We also have Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh,” Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

“I express my gratitude to all the senior leaders for giving me this opportunity. I will try to keep intact the belief that they have shown in me,” Jyotiraditya Scindia on being sworn-in as Union Cabinet Minister.

After taking oath as the Union Sports Minister, Anurag Thakur said, “I am thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah for giving me this chance. All possible efforts will be made to fulfil the duties.”

Here is the full list of the Ministers with the assigned protfolio:

 

Image Source: Indian Express