Nirmala Sitharaman and Annapurna Devi were sworn in as cabinet ministers in a grand ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan last evening. The 72-member council of ministers in the third Narendra Modi government includes seven women, two of whom hold cabinet rank, which is four fewer than in the outgoing council of ministers.
Nirmala Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha MP, has previously held significant portfolios such as finance and defence. Annapurna Devi, a two-time MP from Koderma, has been elevated from minister of state to cabinet minister. In the outgoing government, she served as the junior minister for education.
Other women who were sworn in as ministers yesterday include Anupriya Patel, Raksha Khadse, Savitri Thakur, Shobha Karandlaje, and Nimuben Bambhaniya.
Anupriya Patel, chief of Apna Dal (Sonelal), an ally of the BJP, previously served as the minister of state for health and family welfare in the first Modi government and as the junior minister for commerce and industry in Modi 2.0. Her party’s Lok Sabha seat tally dropped from two to one in this election.
Raksha Khadse, 37, is the daughter-in-law of veteran Maharashtra politician Eknath Khadse. A three-time MP from Raver, she has also served as a sarpanch and a member of the Zila Parishad.
Savitri Thakur, a two-time MP from Dhar, is another first-time minister in Modi 3.0. She won the 2014 election but did not contest in 2019. In 2024, she made a strong comeback, winning her seat by over 2 lakh votes. Thakur also has extensive experience working at the panchayat level.
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