Modi to take oath along with 44 other ministers

Narendra Modi will take oath as the 15th Prime Minister of India along with 44 others today.

The Council of Ministers will have Prime Minister, 23 Cabinet Ministers, 10 Ministers of State (Independent Charge) and 11 Ministers of State. This will be much smaller ministry in comparison to the last three Governments, including the previous National Democratic Alliance Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004).

Home, Finance Ministries

Various reports suggest that Rajnath Singh is all set to be the new Home Minister and will also be number two in Modi’s council. Arun Jaitley is expected to be given Finance portfolio, while External Affairs may go to Sushma Swaraj. However, Modi is likely to keep Defence portfolio with himself.

Cabinet ministers

The list of Cabinet ministers are Nitin Gadkari,Venkaiah Naidu, Sadananda Gowda, Ram Vilas Paswan, Gopinath Munde, Kalraj Mishra, Maneka Gandhi, Ananth Kumar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ashok Gadpati Raju, Ananth Geete, Harsimrat Kaur, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jewl Oram, Thavarchand Gehlot, Smriti Irani, Uma Bharti, Najma Heptullah, Radha Mohan Singh and Harsh Vardhan.

The speculation is that Gadkari may get Transport, Naidu will be the new Urban Development Minister, Maneka Gandhi will get Women and Child Development, Anant kumar will be Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad will be the new Law Minister and Radha Mohan Singh will be the Agriculture Minister.

Leaders expected to be sworn in as Ministers of State with Independent Charge are Jitendra Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman (Commerce), Dharmendra Pradhan, Sarbananda Sonowal, Prakash Javadekar (Information Broadcasting), Piyush Goel, VK Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Shripad Naik.

Similarly, GM Siddeshwara, Manoj Sinha, Upendra Kushwaha, Radhakrishnan P, Kiren Rijiju, Krishan Pal Gujar, Sanjeev Kumar, Balyan Mansukhbhai Baswa, Rao Sahab Dhanwe, Vishnudev and Sudarshan Bhagat will take oath as Ministers of State.

Compact & effective

Modi has kept the promise of 'Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’ in finalising the size of his council. This was also indicated in a press statement issued by his secretariat late Sunday.

It emphasised that the top layers of Government will be downsized and there would be expansion at the grass-root level. “Earlier, there was political instability and multi-party governments and the ministry formation was almost done in a bifurcated manner,” it said.

Assembled ministry to organic entity

The Prime Minister-designate, it said, tried in a rational manner to club like-minded departments in the ministry formation in such a way to "convert entity of assembled ministry to organic entity''. The statement went on to add that integrated and inter-connected nature of governance is being focussed in this new dent.

“It is a good beginning in transforming entity of assembled ministries to organic ministries. It will bring more coordination between different departments and will be more effective and bring a speed in process,” it said.

Guests in Raisina Hill

About 4,000 guests are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony. Guests have started reaching Raisina Hill on which the Rashtrapati Bhavan is located.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Bhutan Prime Minister Lyonchen Tshering Tobgay and Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom have already reached the Capital. Speaker of Bangladesh Shirin Chaudhry is representing the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Film stars Amitabh Bachhan, Rekha and Salman Khan and cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar are also attending the ceremony.

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