Next up was Sushma Swaraj who has been made the External Affairs Minister. She will be assisted by former Army Chief General VK Singh as Minister of State. The General, who is now the BJP's Ghaziabad MP, also has independent charge of North East Affairs.



Arun Jaitley is the Finance Minister and will also hold additional charge of Defence and Corporate Affairs. He will be assisted in the Defence Ministry by Gurgaon MP, recently imported by the BJP from the Congress, Rao Inderjit Singh as Minister of State. Mr Singh also has independent charge of Statistic and Planning.

Former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu was the fourth BJP leader to be sworn in. He will be Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the new government. Another former party president Nitin Gadkari has been given a mega Transport Ministry. Sadananda Gowda has charge of Railways.

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti is Union Minister for Water Resources. Najma Heptulla has charge of Minority Affairs.

Former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde has been handed the Rural Development Ministry. Former UP BJP chief Kalraj Mishra has also been made Cabinet minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Maneka Gandhi will be Union Minister for Women and Child Development. Ananth Kumar will hold the Chemicals and Fertiliser Ministry.



Ravi Shankar Prasad will be Law Minister and also have charge of Telecom. Narendra Singh Tomar, Madhya Pradesh BJP chief, has also been inducted into the Union Cabinet. Jual Oram will be Cabinet Minister for Tribal Affairs. Radha Mohan Singh a Bihar BJP leader will hold the key portfolio of Agriculture. Prakash Javadekar, senior BJP spokesperson, will be MoS Information and Broadcasting Minister with Independent Charge and also MoS Parliamentary Affairs. He will also have independent charge of Environment.

BJP general secretary Thawar Chand Gehlot, the party's Dalit face, too finds a place in the Cabinet. Smriti Irani, 38, who took on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in a spirited contest in Amethi in the general election, is Human Resource Development minister. Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan, who defeated journalist-turned-politician Ashutosh of the Aam Aadmi Party and former union minister Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk, is the new Health Minister.

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman is the new Commerce Minister with independent charge. BJP Rajya Sabha member Piyush Goyal is Power and Coal Minister with independent charge. Party general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan has independent charge of the high-profile Oil Ministry.