E-Paper10 Union ministers in Modi 3.0 cabinet who are not members of Lok Sabha. Full list here
PM Modi 3.0: A minister in the Union cabinet has to be a member of either of the two houses of Parliament – the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha.
The new Union cabinet of ministers in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government comprises a mix of old guards and fresh faces. Seventy-two ministers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were inducted into the new cabinet during Sunday's swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The new council of ministers has 61 members from the BJP and 11 leaders from the NDA allies. Of the 72 ministers, 43 have three or more terms in the Parliament, and 39 were ministers in the Union government earlier.
Among familiar faces, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, and S Jaishankar, who were all part of the Modi 2.0 Cabinet, were again sworn in as cabinet ministers.
Some ministers are either members of the Rajya Sabha or will have to become one. A minister in the Union cabinet must be a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, the two houses of Parliament.
Here are the ministers who are not members of the Lok Sabha and still became ministers:
1- S Jaishankar: The former External Affairs Minister Jaishankar did not contest the Lok Sabha elections and was sworn in as a minister on Sunday. Jaishankar has been a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat twice. He was made the Minister of External Affairs on May 31, 2019, under the previous Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
2- Nirmala Sitharaman: The former Minister of Finance, Sitharaman, also did not contest elections. She has been elected twice to the Rajya Sabha, once from Andhra Pradesh and the other time from Karnataka. Sitharaman also took oath as a cabinet minister on Sunday.
3- JP Nadda: The outgoing BJP president, Nadda, has been a Union Minister before. He also took oath as cabinet minister on Sunday. Nadda served as Union health minister in Narendra Modi's first term from November 9, 2014 to May 30, 2019. Nadda is a Rajya Sabha member.
4- Ramdas Athawale: President of the Republican Party of India (Athawale) and Rajya Sabha member, Athawale was the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment in the previous government. The RPI(A), an NDA ally, did not field any candidates for the Lok Sabha polls this time. Athawale needs to take the Rajya Sabha route to be in the cabinet.
5- Hardeep Singh Puri: A former minister of housing and urban affairs in the Modi-led government, Puri is a Rajya Sabha MP. He was also among 30 cabinet ministers who took oath on Sunday. A 1974-batch IFS officer, Puri served as the permanent representative of India to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 before joining the BJP in January 2014.
6- George Kurian: The BJP general secretary in Kerala, Kurian, also took the oath on Sunday. Kurian entered politics through the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). To become minister, Kurian must be elected as a Rajya Sabha MP.
7- Satish Dubey: The BJP’s Brahmin leader from Bihar, Satish, represented the Valmiki Nagar seat in the Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019. Now a Rajya Sabha MP, Dubey gained prominence as an activist who took up the issues of sugarcane farmers.
8- Sanjay Seth: He is a businessman from Ranchi. Seth is a Rajya Sabha member and was sworn in as a minister on Sunday. He began his political journey as a student leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1976 and became a parliamentarian in 2019.
9 - Ramnath Thakur: The two-time JD (U) Rajya Sabha member and son of former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur, Ramnath Thakur, was also sworn in as the minister of state on Sunday.
10- BL Verma: Rajya Sabha member BL Verma was also sworn in as the minister of state on Sunday. Verma was the minister of state in the Ministry of Development in the northeastern region in the previous government led by Narendra Modi.
Other ministers who are not members of Lok Sabha include Pabita Margherita, L Murugan, Ranveet Singh Bittu. Rajya Sabha MP Margherita from Assam was sworn in as the minister of the state in the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Murugan, the Former Tamil Nadu BJP president and former Union minister of state for animal husbandry, lost the election but still made it to the Modi-led cabinet.
Similarly, Bittu, the 48-year-old politician and three-time MP, quit the Congress party and lost the Lok Sabha elections. Bittu, who joined the BJP just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, has also been made a minister.
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