Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister on Sunday for a record-equalling third term, heading a 72-member Union council of ministers that put emphasis on continuity, youth and experience while also rewarding partners in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government.
Here's a list of those who were retained, those who were brought in and those who were dropped from the council of ministers.
FAMILIAR FACES RETAINED
Amit Shah
He has been an elected representative for the past 25 years - first as an MLA, then as a member of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.
A Bharatiya Janata Party national president for six years, he has been the Union home minister as well as minister for Cooperation, a new ministry formed by the government.
He retained the Gandhinagar seat in the parliamentary polls by a massive margin of over 7.44 lakh votes.
Rajnath Singh
A lecturer, who later turned politician, has seen a long political innings from being a chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to the national president of the BJP.
Before being a minister in two successive Modi governments, he has also been a road transport minister in the Atal Bihari government.
Singh has handled two key portfolios of Home and Defence in the Modi government and was Deputy Leader of the House in the 17th Lok Sabha which was dissolved earlier this month.
He won the just-held Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow by a margin of over 1.35 lakh votes.
Nirmala Sitharaman
Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs and a Rajya Sabha MP representing Karnataka, she decided against contesting the Lok Sabha elections.
She was a national spokesperson of the BJP and became a Union minister holding the defence and later the finance portfolios.
S Jaishankar
A career diplomat who served as India's envoy to Beijing and later rose to become the foreign secretary, he was the external affairs minister in the Modi 2.0 government.
A Rajya Sabha member, he is the voice of New Delhi at international fora.
Nitin Gadkari
Closely associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from early days, he is seen as a crusader for bio-fuels.
A former national president of the BJP, Gadkari became a Minister of the Public Works Department of Maharashtra in 1995.
Gadkari was elected to the 16th Sabha from Nagpur winning by an impressive margin. On May 26, 2014, he was sworn in as the Minister for Road Transport.
He retained the Nagpur seat in the recent parliamentary polls.
Piyush Goyal
He was Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Textiles, and Leader of the House, Rajya Sabha in the Modi 2.0 government.
He has previously helmed the Ministry of Railways, Finance, Corporate Affairs, Coal, Power, New and Renewable Energy, and Mines.
Dharmendra Pradhan
He served as Minister of Education and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and so far has been a Rajya Sabha member.
He has entered Lok Sabha this time by winning from Sambhalpur in Odisha, a state where BJP has also won the assembly polls.
Other leaders of BJP who have been retained in the Union council of ministers are: Ashwini Vaishnaw, Kiren Rijiju, Hardeep Singh Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bhupender Yadav, Pralhad Joshi, Giriraj Singh, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Jitendra Singh, among others.
NEW FACES JOINING THE GOVERNMENT
Manohar Lal Khattar
Former Haryana chief minister who won his first-term in the Lok Sabha this year from Karnal.
A former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, Khattar served as the chief minister of Haryana twice.
He resigned from the post in March after ally Jannayak Janata Party withdrew support from the government.
C R Paatil
Gujarat BJP president Chandrakant Raghunath Paatil, who steered the party to a record win in the state assembly polls in 2022 and has earned plaudits for his stellar victory margins in Lok Sabha polls, was inducted into the Narendra Modi government.
Paatil, who won his fourth term as MP from Navsari in south Gujarat, won the 2019 polls with a record margin of 6.89 lakh votes, only to better it in 2024 with a victory by 7.73 lakh votes.
In the 2014 polls, his victory margin was a record in Gujarat and the third highest in the country.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister won the Vidisha seat for the fifth time in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
He represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha from 1991 to 2004, before becoming chief minister in 2005.
He is also the longest-serving chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.
Bandi Sanjay Kumar
Firebrand BJP leader from Telangana, Bandi Sanjay Kumar took oath as a Union minister on Sunday.
The former Telangana BJP chief retained the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency with a massive margin of over 2.25 lakh votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Ravneet Singh Bittu
Even though he lost from the Ludhiana parliamentary seat, Bittu became a minister of state in the third Narendra Modi-led cabinet.
The grandson of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, is a three-time MP -- twice from Ludhiana and once from Anandpur Sahib, both times on a Congress ticket
He defected to the BJP this March.
The BJP's move to induct Bittu as a minister in the Modi cabinet assumes significance as the saffron party seeks to spread its footprint in Punjab.
Jitin Prasada
Jitin Prasada was once considered as among Rahul Gandhi's 'young Turks' and was a minister in successive Manmohan Singh governments but defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2021, where he has again established himself as a prominent Brahmin face of Uttar Pradesh.
The 50-year-old returned to the Centre on Sunday after he took oath as a member of the Council of Ministers led by Modi.
Raksha Khadse
Raksha Nikhil Khadse is the youngest minister at 37 to be sworn in on Sunday.
Khadse, an MP from Maharashtra, was sworn in as minister of state (MoS).
The daughter-in-law of former BJP leader Eknath Khadse won the Raver Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra for the third time in a row.
ALLIES INCLUDED IN THE GOVERNMENT
K Ram Mohan Naidu- Telugu Desam Party
Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani- Telugu Desam Party
Lalan Singh- Janata Dal-United
Ram Nath Thakur - Janata Dal-United
Prataprao Jadhav- Shiv Sena
Chirag Paswan - Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas
Jitan Ram Manjhi - Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular
H D Kumaraswamy - Janata Dal-Secular
Jayant Chaudhary - Rashtriya Lok Dal
Ramdas Athawale - Republican Party of India-Athawale
Anupriya Patel- Apna Dal-Sonelal
THOSE WHO ARE DROPPED
Anurag Thakur
He won for the fifth consecutive time from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha constituency, but was not among the ministers taking oath on Sunday.
Thakur held the dual charge of the ministry of information and broadcasting and ministry of youth affairs and sports, in Modi 2.0.
Smriti Irani
A cabinet minister in both terms of the Modi government, lost the election from Amethi to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's aide Kishori Lal Sharma by a margin of over 1.69 lakh votes.
Irani was HRD Minister and textiles minister in the first term while she held women and child development and minority affairs portfolios in Modi 2.0.
Parshottam Rupala
Parshottam Rupala was the minister of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying in the previous government.
Rupala, who found himself in the eye of a storm kicked off by his allegedly derogatory remarks about the Kshatriya community ahead of the elections, eventually emerged unscathed as he won Gujarat's Rajkot Lok Sabha seat with a record margin of around five lakh votes.
His deputy in the fisheries ministry, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan has also been dropped.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who was the minister of state for skill development, electronics and IT and Jalshakti, lost the election from Thiruvananthapuram to sitting Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Other sitting ministers who were not retained in the new Council of Ministers are: Meenakshi Lekhi, Munjapara Mahendrabhai, Ajay Kumar Mishra, Kailash Choudhary, Kapil Moreshwar Patil, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Kaushal Kishore, Bhagwanth Khubha, V Muraleedharan, VK Singh, Faggansingh Kulaste, Ashwini Choubey, Danve Raosaheb Dadarao, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Balyan, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Subhas Sarkar, Nisith Pramanik, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh and Pratima Bhoumik.
