Cabinet revamp: Nirmala Sitharaman gets Defence, Piyush Goel to head Railways
On Sunday, President Ram Nath Kovind, as advised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, administered the swearing-in-ceremony of nine new ministers.
As a part of the revamp by PM Modi, four minsters got promoted to Cabinet rank.
The four ministers, who were elevated to the Cabinet rank, are-Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
Of them, Piyush Goel was shouldered upon the responsibility of Railways while Nirmala Sitharaman will now head the Defence Ministry.
Sitharaman is the first woman Defence Minister of the country. Indira Gandhi had held the department when she was Prime Minister.
Ahead of the oath taking ceremony on Sunday, the nine new ministers met PM Modi and party chief Amit Shah.
The new Ministers of State include Shiv Pratap Shukla, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Virendra Kumar, Anantkumar Hegde, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Satya Pal Singh and Alphons Kannanthanam.
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Seven ministers have resigned from the Modi government since Thursday.
The list of ministers who had resigned includes Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjiv Kumar Balyan, Faggan Singh Kulaste, Bandaru Dattatreya, Mahendra Nath Pandey.
Apart from them, few other ministers had also resigned in 2017 that led to a number of vacancies in Modi's cabinet.
Manohar Parrikar resigned as the Defence minister to become the Goa chief minister.
Venkaiah Naidu also resigned from the Information and Broadcasting ministry and the central government as he became the Vice President of India.
Presently, Arun Jaitley will handle the finance ministry. However, he will attend an international meeting of Defence Ministers in Japan, for which he leaves on Sunday night.
Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Sanjeev Balyan both said they were told to resign by the party and they unquestioningly did so.
"It's not my decision, it's the decision of the party, and I will follow (it)," Rudy told NDTV.
According to media reports, Rudy and Balyan are expected to be given key organisational roles in the BJP in preparation for the 2019 elections.
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