Narendra Modi has etched his name in history, becoming the second Prime Minister, after Jawaharlal Nehru, to secure a third consecutive term. During the momentous swearing-in ceremony, Modi, along with senior BJP leaders Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, and S Jaishankar, took the oath of office, affirming their commitment in the name of God.
Seven women members, including Nirmala Sitharaman, Annapurna Devi and Anupriya Singh Patel, were sworn in as the ministers in the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on June 9.
The swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Council of Ministers took place in the impressive courtyard of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Numerous heads of state attended the event, including political veterans and debutants, business tycoons, and a few film stars, adding glamour to the occasion. Modi achieved a milestone by matching the achievement of the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who won the general elections of 1952, 1957, and 1962.
The new women ministers in the Modi 3.0 cabinet are former Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel, and BJP MPs Shobha Karandlaje, Nimuben Bambhaniya, Raksha Khadse, Savitri Thakur, and Annapurna Devi. Sitharaman and Devi served in the union cabinet, while the others were sworn in as ministers of state.
Nirmala Sitharaman made history as the first woman to serve three consecutive terms in Modi’s Government. She began as a Cabinet member in 2014, later becoming the first female Defence Minister in 2017. Following Arun Jaitley’s illness, Sitharaman was given the charge of the finance portfolio in the newly re-elected Modi Government after the 2019 general elections, when BJP won its highest seats of 303.
Annapurna Devi was sworn in as a minister after newly re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath of office at Rashtrapati Bhavan on June 9. Annapurna Devi was the Minister of State for Education in the previous Modi Government and is also one of the BJP’s national vice presidents. She won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for the second consecutive time from Koderma in Jharkhand.
Anupriya Singh Patel has been the president of the Apna Dal (Soneylal) party since 2016 and was the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry of India in the last Government. She represents Mirzapur in the Lok Sabha since 2014. She was also the Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from 2016 to 2019. In the 2014 general election, Patel’s party campaigned in alliance with the BJP. After the election, there were rumours that the two parties would merge, but Patel rejected the speculation.
Shobha Karandlaje, Bengaluru’s first-ever woman MP, took oath as part of Modi cabinet 3.0. Karandlaje, a prominent BJP leader, made history in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 by becoming the first woman MP to represent Bengaluru, the capital city of Karnataka. In a closely contested election, Karandlaje emerged victorious by the margin of 2,59,476 votes from the Bengaluru North constituency, defeating Congress candidate MV Rajeev Gowda.
Raksha Khadse, the three-term Lok Sabha member from Raver in north Maharashtra, has secured a place in the Modi’s cabinet. Despite BJP candidates facing setbacks in several seats in Maharashtra due to new political alignments, Raksha Khadse emerged as a symbol of resilience. The two-time BJP MP from Maharashtra’s Raver secured victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha election by an impressive margin of nearly 3 lakh votes.
Savitri Thakur, who won the Dhar (Scheduled Tribe reserved) seat in Madhya Pradesh in the recently held general elections, was on Sunday sworn in as a minister of state in the Narendra Modi Government. Thakur (46), a prominent female tribal leader of the BJP in the state, won the Lok Sabha poll in 2014 but was denied a ticket in the 2019 edition.
Nimuben Bambhaniya, one of the three women candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to win the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat, has been inducted into the Union cabinet as a minister of state. She defeated Aam Aadmi Party’s Umesh Makwana by a huge margin of 4.55 lakh votes in the Bhavnagar constituency. Nimuben Bambhaniya served as the mayor of Bhavnagar for two terms between 2009-10 and 2015-18 and was the vice president of the BJP Mahila Morcha’s state unit between 2013 and 2021.
The women ministers in the new NDA Government under Modi 3.0 represent a commitment to gender diversity and empowerment. As they take on their roles, their contributions are poised to shape policies and governance, ensuring a more inclusive and representative political landscape for all citizens.
