Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi with NDA leaders during an interaction over tea, in New Delhi
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Hours before the government was to be sworn in, a video released by the government brought an end to speculations on who will be in the new council of ministers.
Senior BJP faces Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Nirmala Sitharaman sat alongside party veterans Shivraj Chouhan and ML Khattar – new inductees into the central government. Also seen in the video were leaders from NDA allies including former Karnataka CM and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, HAM’s Jitan Ram Manjhi, JD(U) Rajeev Ranjan, LJP leader Chirag Paswan and RJD’s Jayant Chaudharym besides TDP’s Rammohan Naidu.
In the video, PM Modi is seen speaking to the gathering. Sources said that the PM-designate asked those present to concentrate on the first 100 days of the government. Modi has previously held meetings with bureaucrats to lay out a 100-day roadmap.
Speculations on who had made the cut and who did not were high, and all eyes were on the invitees to the tea being hosted by the prime minister-designate to his residence. Some of the prominent faces from the previous Modi government that were not seen include former union ministers Anurag Thakur and Purshottam Rupala, besides Smriti Irani, who lost the elections from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi. Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Narayan Rane, Bharti Pawar and Raosaheb Danve also did not make the cut.
Apart from Shivraj and ML Khattar, new faces from the BJP in the Council of Ministers are Suresh Gopi, Jitin Prasada, Raksha Khadse, Muralidhar Mohol, and V Somanna. Old faces S Jaishankar, Mansukh Mandaviya, Piyush Goyal, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbanand Sonowal, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Dharmendra Pradhan, Bhupendra Yadav, Pralhad Joshi, Kiren Rijiju, L Murugan, Hardeep Puri, Nityanad Rai, Virendra Kumar, Shobha Karandlaje and Gajendra Shekhawat, will also be ministers in the Modi 3.0 Cabinet.
Among the allies, apart from the senior faces, Prataprao Jadhav from Shiv Sena, Dr Chandrasekhar Pemmasini from TDP, AJSU’s Sudesh Mahato, were also in the video.
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