Cabinet reshuffle: Full list of 43 ministers likely to take oath today

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Bhupender Yadav, Anupriya Patel, Shobha Karandlaje, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ajay Bhatt, Anurag Thakur are among the ministers who will take the oath

As many as 43 new members are all set to be sworn in this evening in Prime Minister Modi's new cabinet which will be one of the most inclusive with record representation of SC, ST members.

It is learnt from reliable sources that post-expansion, there will be 12 members from the SC community, including two in the cabinet; eight members will be from Scheduled Tribe category in the council of ministers out of which three will be in the cabinet.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Bhupender Yadav, Anupriya Patel, Shobha Karandlaje, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ajay Bhatt, Anurag Thakur are among the ministers, new and old, who will take the oath.

After cabinet expansion, the Modi government is expected to have 27 OBC leaders out of which five will be in the cabinet.

Sources further informed that there will be a substantial increase in the number of professionals in the cabinet.

"Post expansion there will be 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers, and seven civil servants in total," the sources said.

As reported by ANI yesterday, there will be a special focus on bringing down the average age of the Modi cabinet, post-expansion there will be 14 ministers below the age of 50, and six will be in the cabinet.

To bring in the administrative and federal experience of governance, 39 former MLAs and four former Chief Minister's will be part of the expanded cabinet

Leaders from minority communities will also find greater representation after rejig.

It is learned that one member each from Christian, Muslim, and Sikh communities and two Buddhists to be included.

After expansion, it is learnt that there will also be five ministers from North East India in total.

Meanwhile, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar and Education Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank have resigned from the Union Cabinet, ahead of Cabinet expansion.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, whose handling of the Covid crisis drew flak from critics, also resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on Wednesday, official sources said.

Besides Vardhan, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has also quit. Several union ministers of state have also resigned.

Vardhan, a doctor himself, had been in charge of the health ministry as well as the science and technology ministry as the Covid pandemic broke and then India worked to develop vaccines.

However, his various comments in the middle of the crisis were slammed by critics as insensitive and ignorant of the ground reality, even as he strongly defended the government's handling of the situation.
 

Here's the final list of 43 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