Cabinet Reshuffle: Seven more women join PM Modi's new team

Seven more women have found a place in Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers, taking the total number to 11, in the Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, which also saw the dropping of a junior minister.

At the beginning of Modi's second term, there were six women ministers, but Harsimrat Kaur resigned after Akali Dal snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA. The exclusion of Sushma Swaraj, who passed away, and Maneka Gandhi had then raised eyebrows.

Minister of State Debasree Chaudhuri, who represents West Bengal's Raiganj, was dropped this time while other women ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani, Renuka Singh and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti retained their space in Modi 2.0.

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Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel returned to Modi's team after a gap of two years, after she failed to find a place in 2019, following her insistence that she should get a Cabinet berth.

Others who found a place in Modi's team and their first ministerial assignment at the Centre are Shobha Karandlaje, Darshana Jardosh, Meenakshi Lekhi, Annapurna Devi, Pratima Bhaumik and Dr Bharati Pawar.

At present, Parliament has a record number of 78 women MPs, with BJP having 41.

Over the years, the number of women ministers have been increasing, but under Modi, there were more women Cabinet ministers and Sitharaman is part of the elite Cabinet Committee on Security.

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Modi could have created a record if he had added one woman into his team, as the Manmohan Singh government had 12 women ministers in 2013. However, the Modi government holds the record of having six women Cabinet Ministers at a time.

While the number of women ministers are slowly increasing, India has a long way to go as there are at least nine countries where 50% or more women are in ministerial positions. Spain with 64.7% women ministers is at the top, followed by Nicaragua (55.6%) and Sweden (54.4%).

Karandlaje, a close confidante of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, enters Modi's council of ministers as a fiery politician who defends the party on all fora.

Read | Four MPs from Karnataka to join Modi Cabinet 2.0

Lekhi, who came out in staunch support of Modi for being BJP's prime ministerial candidate prior to 2014 elections, was considered following her performance inside and outside Parliament, especially her fierce fight to counter Congress allegations on the Rafale deal.

Another interesting inductee is Annapurna Singh, former RJD Jharkhand president who joined BJP ahead of 2019 polls. She represents Kodarma and has defeated former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi.

Jardosh, who has been in politics since 1988, is a three-term MP from Surat. The choice of Bharati Pawar, a medical practitioner from tribal community who represents Dindori, and Pratima Bhoumik, who represents Tripura West, also finds a space in the reshuffled council of ministers.