Amit Shah and S Jaishankar

NEW DELHI: The new Modi cabinet will include as many as 20 leaders, including BJP president Amit Shah, who will serve as ministers in the central government for the first time.

Here is a look at the prominent first-time ministers in the new government.

Amit Shah

Speculation over BJP chief Amit Shah getting a Cabinet berth was rife ever since the resounding victory of the BJP and its allies in the Lok Sabha elections. From a party worker to a cabinet minister, Shah has had a meteoric rise in the BJP. Shah took over as the BJP president soon after NDA emerged victorious in 2014 general election and is known for scripting many electoral successes for the BJP, including the recent Lok Sabha election triumph.

S Jaishankar

Former foreign secretary S Jaishankar, a surprise pick in Narendra Modi's council of ministers, is a seasoned diplomat who was the Indian government's pointsman for China and the US. In 2019, he was conferred Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour by President Ram Nath Kovind. He played a pivotal role in negotiating the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Last year, Tata Group appointed Jaishankar, who was Indian foreign secretary from January 2015 to January 2018, as its president for global corporate affairs.

Arjun Munda

The tribal face of BJP in Jharkhand, Munda has served as the chief minister of the state for three terms. He became chief minister at the age of 36 in 2003 and helmed the state till September 2006. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Jamshedpur in 2009 but resigned after becoming the chief minister for the third time in August 2010.

Anurag Thakur

At an election rally in Himachal Pradesh earlier this month, BJP president Amit Shah promised to make Anurag Thakur a "big leader" if voters in Hamirpur elected him with a record margin. He did. And Shah kept his word. Son of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Anurag Thakur had won the Hamirpur constituency for the fourth time by defeating Ram Lal Thakur of the Congress by nearly four lakh votes, a record margin for the constituency. The 44-year-old was also the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from May 2016-February 2017.

Kailash Choudhary

In his maiden Lok Sabha contest, BJP’s Barmer candidate Kailash Choudhary defeated his-high profile Congress rival Manvendra Singh, son of the veteran saffron leader Jaswant Singh. The 40-year-old BJP leader won by over three lakh votes. The BJP had dropped Sona Ram, its MP from Barmer, to field Choudhary, a former legislator from Baytoo. He had lost the assembly elections in Rajasthan in 2018.

Rattan Lal Kataria

Ambala MP Rattan Lal Kataria had defeated Congress leader and former Union minister Kumari Selja, a two-time MP from the constituency, by a margin of 3,42,345 votes in the Lok Sabha elections.

Deboshree Chaudhary

Chaudhary defeated TMC's Kanaia Lal Agarwal by a margin of over 60,000 votes from West Bengal's Raiganj constituency. She has earlier served as the general secretary of West Bengal state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party.

G Kishan Reddy

A three-time MLA, G Kishan Reddy won the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat by defeating TRS leader T Sai Kiran by a margin of over 62,000 votes. Reddy has also been a former BJP unit president in Telangana. Reddy was a senior MLA who narrowly lost the Telangana assembly polls in December. He will be the lone face in the Union ministry from Telangana.

Arvind Sawant

Sawant will be the lone Shiv Sena face in the Union government and will replace Anant Geete, who lost in 2019 from his Raigad constituency. Sawant is credited for building the party's organisation in northern Maharashtra's Dhule and has been rewarded a ministerial berth after he wrested the high-profile Mumbai South seat from Congress's Milind Deora in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.

Pralhad Joshi

Pralhad Joshi, a four-time MP from Dharwad, Karnataka defeated Congress candidate Vinay Kulkarni in the Lok Sabha elections. The senior BJP leader has also served as a Karnataka BJP president in the past.

Ramesh Pokhriyal

Pokhriyal served as the chief minister of Uttarakhand from 2009 to 2011. He was elected as the Member of Parliament from Haridwar seat in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. The BJP leader defeated Ambrish Kumar of the Congress by 2,58,729 votes in Haridwar.

Suresh Angadi

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, Angadi won from the Belagavi constituency for the third consecutive time. Earlier, he had won from the same constituency in 2004 as well as 2009.

Rameswar Teli

He won the Assam's Dibrugarh constituency by a margin of over 3.6 lakh votes and has served in the Assam assembly as an MLA from 2001 to 2011. Many in Assam feel a cabinet berth to the young and dynamic MP like Teli was long overdue. His popularity made the BJP field him in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Dibrugarh against Congress strongman and former Union Minister Paban Singh Ghatowar, who had retained the seat for five terms since 1991. Teli defeated Ghatowar with over 1,85,000 votes. He again beat Ghatowar in Dibrugarh in this Lok Sabha polls and with the highest margin of 3,64,566 votes in Assam.

The other leaders who will make their ministerial debut are Prahalad Singh Patel, Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Nityanand Rai, V Muraleedharan, Renuka Singh Saruta, and Som Prakash.



In Video: BJP president Amit Shah takes oath as union minister