Modi's council of ministers

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening took oath along with 45-member council of ministers.

The council of ministers included 23 Cabinet ministers, 10 ministers of state with independent charge and 13 ministers of state.

However, the Rashtrapati Bhavan announced the portfolios only on Tuesday.

PM Modi keeps with himself personnel, public grievances and pensions, department of atomic energy and department of space portfolios, and is also inc-charge of all important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any minister.

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The BJP president gets the all-important Home portfolio.

Singh, the teacher-turned politician, is returning to government in a seamless journey from a party president, under whose stewardship the BJP has returned to power with highest ever tally.

62-year-old Singh, who steadfastly announced Modi's name as BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate despite opposition from seniors like L K Advani, is going to be one of the trusted lieutenants of Prime Minister Modi with a major say in the functioning of the government.

Singh, a two-term BJP president, rose from a BJP activists in Gorakhpur, where he taught physics in a local college, to Chief Minister of politically crucial Uttar Pradesh and then Transport and Agriculture Minister in Atal Bihar Vajpayee government.

His rise in politics has been gradual and steady during which he had been BJP chief from 2006 to 2009 and earned the reputation of being an able administrator as Union Minister and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Elected to Lok Sabha from Lucknow, Singh has emerged from the ranks as a political heavyweight in the party largely due to his proximity to BJP's spiritual mentor RSS.

After taking over BJP's reins for the first time from Advani in December 2005, Singh sought to rebuild the party by focusing on basic Hindutva ideologies and said there would be "no compromise" on building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

However, he not only failed to steer the party to power in the 2009 general elections but BJP's poll tally dropped by 22 seats compared to 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

Born on July 10, 1951 at Bhabhaura village in Uttar Pradesh's Chandauli district, Singh obtained MSc in physics from Gorakhpur University and was appointed lecturer in the K B Post degree college in Mirzapur in 1971.

Singh's association with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh began in 1964 when he was only 13 year old. Even as lecturer he remained attached to RSS.

Rising step by step, he began his political innings with BJP's student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1969 as its organising secretary in Gorakhpur and rose to become the secretary of the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh's Mirzapur unit in 1974.

During the Emergency, Singh joined Jaiprakash Narayan's movement and was arrested in July 1975 before being released in 1977.

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Arun Jaitley, Cabinet minister

The senior BJP leader gets Finance, Corporate Affairs and Defence.

Few people in the central leadership of BJP could claim to have the ears of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Arun Jaitley can.

Jaitley, 61, defended Modi vigrously when future appeared uncertain for the then Gujarat Chief Minister following 2002 riots and played a crucial rule in his rise to the top when voices of discontent, led by the likes L K Advani, grew louder.

And it is also an evidence of Modi's faith in him that despite his loss in Lok Sabha elections, the legal luminary was always being seen as a certainty in the Modi cabinet for a high profile ministry.

More of a strategist than a grassroots politician, Jaitley was a key helmsman in the party's 2014 campaign, now being recognised for its brilliance by even opponents, and was its key voice as the Modi juggernaut rolled on.

Through his blogposts, he keenly defended the personalised electioneering around Modi when other veterans like Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi besides Advani seemed to demur and even took gentle swipes at party leaders, including Sushma, when they disapproved of inclusion of tainted leaders like B S Yeddyurappa.

His detractors, though, would say his adroit political calculations were of not much personal help. He chose to fight his maiden Lok Sabha election from Amritsar and lost to Congress bigwig Amarinder Singh.

In the first BJP government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaitley was appointed Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge) and later headed Disinvestment ministry (Independent Charge), a new ministry created for to give effect to the policy of disinvestments.

He was the first Minister of Shipping following the bifurcation of the Ministry of Surface Transport and later headed Law & Justice where he gave shape to the policy of judicial reforms.

Seen as an articulate face of the party who is as much at ease in advocating market reforms as defending the traditional, at times orthodox, world view of the larger Sangh parivar, the senior Supreme Court lawyer at heart is a modernist who shares Modi's dictum of "minimum government, maximum governance".

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Nitin Gadkari, Cabinet minister

The former BJP president will head the mega Transport portfolio consisting of road transport, highways and shipping.

Firmly ensconced as a key member of Narendra Modi's core group, Nitin Gadkari, who earned the distinction of being the youngest BJP president, is known as an able administrator with innovative approaches.

A first-timer in Lok sabha, Gadkari, 57, has had a long innings in Maharashtra as minister and Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council besides working at the national level in different capacities.
Born into a middle class agricultural family in Nagpur, he is hit the spotlight for giving his city a new face through his development work and also earned the nick-name of 'flyover man during his stint as the PWD minister for building a series of flyovers in Mumbai.

The success of the Mumbai-Pune expressessway also brought him fame, with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asking him to launch the national highway authority.

Gadkari was elected to the Lok Sabha from Nagpur, a traditional Congress stronghold, defeating seven time winner Vilas Mutthemwar by a margin of about three lakh vote.

The BJP-Shiv Sena combine has won 42 out of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, including all the ten seats in the Vidarbha region.

Inspired in his early life by the RSS, Gadkari entered politics as a student leader of ABVP and later joined the Janta Yuva Morcha, youth wing of the BJP.

The imposition of emergency by Indira Gandhi in June 1975 was a turning point in his life, following which he decided to dedicate his life to social work rather than practicing law.

Gadkari studied M.Com, LLB and diploma in business management.

As a PWD Minister between 1995 and 1999, he gained first experience to undertake infrastructure projects. He is quoted as having said that with Rs five, he earned the distinction of completing works worth Rs 8000 crore. He often recalls this unique distinction he earned as PWD minister.

He has promoted water management, solar energy projects and the use of modern technology and management tools in agriculture.

Married to Kanchan Gadkari, they have three children.

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Sushma Swaraj, Cabinet minister


The former Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha becomes the first woman to head the external affairs and overseas India affairs portfolios.

The induction of Sushma Swaraj, who was seen as a dissenter after Narendra Modi was declared BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, is an acknowledgment of her stature and capabilities and who could not be overlooked.

62-year-old Swaraj was long being spoken about as the brightest second generation politician to lead BJP but the leader of opposition in the outgoing Lok Sabha was caught off-guard, like many others including her mentor L K Advani, by the Modi phenomenon.

While many joined the chorus and many others still reconciled to Modi's elevation, she remained a voice of caution and at times dissent.

Whether it was the declaration of Modi as the party's campaign committee chief in June, 2013, or his subsequent elevation as its prime ministerial candidate in September last, she chose to throw her weight with the discontent of Advani but did not take a public stand like her mentor.

But it appears that the party's grand victory coupled with her own impressive win from Vidisha constituency and the need to put up an united front have ironed out Modi's misgivings, if any, about her.

She too spoke about Modi's "able leadership" and met him a couple of times during the parleys among top party leaders over the government formation.

An articulate speaker who can speak in chaste Hindi as well as English with equally felicity, the daughter of a RSS worker is also in the good grace of the Sangh top brass due to her strong espousal of swadesi and other familiar causes.

She had vowed in 2004 to shave her head if Italy-born Congress President Sonia Gandhi became the Prime Minister. Her emotive stand won her admirers among the nationalist hardliners even though it did not come to pass after Gandhi's decision to opt out.

She had also contested against Gandhi from Bellary in 1999 and learned to speak in Kannada. She lost by over 56,000 votes but her spirited campaign added to her stature.

Swaraj has been elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. She also has the distinction of becoming the youngest cabinet minister at 25 in Haryana.

Swaraj began her political career with RSS student wing ABVP in the 1970s. Member of the Haryana Assembly from 1977 to 1982 from Ambala Cantonment, she was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister in Devi Lal government.

She became Janta Party's State President in Haryana at the age of 27 and went on to become education Minister in the BJP–Lok Dal coalition government during 1987–90.

Later, she entered Rajya Sabha and was subsequently elected to the 11th Lok Sabha from South Delhi constituency in 1996.

She was Cabinet Minister for Information and Broadcasting during the 13-day Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1996.

She resigned from the Cabinet in the next Vajpayee regime to take over as the first female Chief Minister of Delhi in October 1998. Though it could not save the party from a humiliating loss in the state assembly. She was later made Health minister in the Union government.