Narendra Modi took oath as Prime Minister for a second consecutive term on Thursday. Along with him, 57 ministers were sworn in, with the most notable inclusion in the cabinet being BJP president Amit Shah, who is being credited for being the architect of his party's massive Lok Sabha victory.
Also, the most surprising element of the event was the swearing-in of former foreign secretary S. Jaishankar as a minister of cabinet rank.
Modi and his team of ministers—which included 25 cabinet-rank ministers, counting the prime minister; nine ministers of state with independent charge and 24 ministers of state—were sworn in at a grand ceremony held in the forecourt of the imposing Rashtrapati Bhavan, with around 8,000 invitees in attendance.
Rajnath Singh, who was home minister in the first edition of Modi government, was the second person to be sworn in after Modi. Shah, feted as the man who crafted the BJP's spectacular outing in the Lok Sabha polls, took oath next.
The cabinet did not look much different from Modi's team in the first term, with the cabinet-rank ministers including Nitin Gadkari, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ram Vilas Paswan, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Smriti Irani, Harsh Vardhan, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Giriraj Singh and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The new inclusions, besides Shah and Jaishankar, included Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank', Arjun Munda, Prahlad Joshi, Mahendra Nath Pandey and Arvind Sawant.
Among the prominent names in the earlier Modi cabinet who were not included in the government this time are Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Maneka Gandhi, J.P. Nadda, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Jayant Sinha, Radhamohan Singh and Suresh Prabhu. Jaitley had, on the eve of the oath-taking ceremony, written to Modi, asking not to be included in the cabinet as he needed to take time out for health reasons. There is buzz that Maneka could be pro-tem speaker.
While Anupriya Patel of ally Apna Dal did not get the invite, the JD(U) is learnt to have decided to stay out of the government as it was unhappy with the number of cabinet berths that it was being given.
The ministers of state with independent charge are Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Rao Inderjit Singh, Shripad Yesso Naik, Dr Jitendra Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Prahalad Singh Patel, R.K. Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and Mansukh Mandaviya.
The ministers of state included Faggan Singh Kulaste, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Arjun Ram Meghwal, V.K. Singh, Krishan Pal, Danve Raosaheb Dadarao, G. Kishan Reddy, Parshottam Rupala, Ramdas Athawale, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Babul Supriyo, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Kailash Choudhary, Debashree Chaudhuri and Anurag Singh Thakur.
A total of six women have been given ministerial berths in the 58-member cabinet. In all, there are 19 newcomers, and 37 ministers have been dropped from the previous government.
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Adding to the grandness of the event and giving it an international dimension, the special invitees included leaders of BIMSTEC nations—President of Bangladesh Abdul Hamid, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, President of Myanmar U Win Myint and Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering. Thailand was represented by Special Envoy Grisada Boonrach. Kyrgyzstan President and current chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Sooronbay Jeenbekov and Mauritius PM Pravind Kumar Jugnauth also attended the ceremony.
Among the guests at the ceremony were former prime minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Spotted amongst the special invitees were business honchos Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata and Anand Mahindra; cine star-turned-politican Rajinikanth; filmmaker Karan Johar; Bollywood stars Anil Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut and Sushant Singh Rajput; playback singer Asha Bhonsle; social activist Kailash Satyarthi and boxer Mary Kom.
