Amit Shah to join Modi's Cabinet, several new faces to be inducted

BJP President Amit Shah will make his debut in the government at the Centre when he will be inducted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his second cabinet which includes existing ministers and several new faces.

The news of Amit Shah entering the Cabinet was broken by Gujarat BJP President Jitu Vagh who tweeted that he met him and congratulated him on his becoming "strong member" of the government under Modi. The tweet ended all speculations about whether he would become part of the new government.

Shah, who made calls to various MPs inviting them to be part of the ministry, himself joined leaders like Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, DV Sadananda Gowda, Dharmendra Pradhan for tea at the prime minister's residence ahead of the swearing-in at 7 pm in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

A surprise inclusion could be former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar who has also reached 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence of the prime minister.

Among the Cabinet ministers likely to be part of the government are Prakash Javadekar and Ram Vilas Paswan (LJSP) and Smriti Ir.

Current ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Jitendra Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh, Giriraj Singh, VK Singh, Sripad Naik, Babul Supriyo and Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Akali Dal) will also be part of the new government.

In the last government, Pradhan, a member of the Rajya Sabha, was Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Gowda was Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation while Badal was Minister of Food Processing. Gowda and Badal were elected in the recent elections.

Gadkari held the portfolio of Road Transport and Highways in Modi's first government and retained his Nagpur Lok Sabha seat in the recently concluded elections.

Naqvi, also a Rajya Sabha member, was Minister of Minority Affairs whereas Babul Supriyo was Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises. Giriraj Singh was Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the last Modi government.

Among the ministers who have been sounded out again to be part of the government are Santosh Gangwar, Niranjan Jyoti, Arjun Ram Meghwal.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank too confirmed that Amit Shah had called him and told him to be 'present' during the oath-taking ceremony.

Among the new faces are Anurag Thakur (Himachal Pradesh), Deboshree Chowdhury (West Bengal), Nityanand Rai (Bihar), Prahlad Joshi and Suresh Angadi (Karnataka), Kailash Choudhary (Rajasthan).

The Bharatiya Janata Party registered a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha polls securing 303 out of 542 parliamentary seats. The NDA alliance got 352.

( With inputs from ANI )