The new ministry, the third one under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a colourful one, consisting of several former Chief Ministers, second-generation politicians and members of erstwhile royal families.

While Narendra Modi himself was the Chief Minister of Gujarat before assuming his position as the Prime Minister in 2014, the current ministry consists of six other former Chief Ministers. They are Rajnath Singh, former Uttar Pradesh CM, former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy, former Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal, former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, former Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar and former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Khattar and Chouhan have ruled their respective states as Chief Ministers for more than one term.

The list of 71 new ministers also includes twelve second-generation politicians. While a few are newbies, the list includes prominent ministers like Piyush Goyal and Jyotiraditya Scindia. While Goyal’s father Ved Prakash Goyal was a minister in the AB Vajpayee government, his mother Chandrakanta Goyal has been an MLA in Maharashtra thrice. Scindia’s father Madhavarao Scindia was a senior Congress leader, who has also been a union minister. HD Kumaraswamy is the son of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Chirag Paswan is the son of former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan. TDP MP Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu is another new addition to the ministry. He is the son of Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, a former TDP Union Minister. Jitin Prasada, who defected from Congress to BJP in 2021, also finds space in the new ministry. He is the son of former Congress leader Jitendra Prasada.

The list of ministers also includes Raksha Khadse, the BJP MP from Maharashtra’s Revar. Though none of her parents are prominent politicians, she is the daughter-in-law of former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse. There are seven women ministers in the new ministry including Khadse, Nirmala Sitharaman, Annapurna Devi and Anupriya Patel. This is three less than the former ministry. The current cabinet, is however the largest since 1998.

While a majority of the new ministers are members of the Lok Sabha (60), the remaining are from Rajya Sabha. The new ministry also includes George Kurian who is a member of neither house. A BJP leader from Kerala, Kurian was previously vice chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, served on the BJP national executive committee, and held the position of national vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.

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