Modi Cabinet holds first meeting today - Fusion - WeRIndia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath of office along with his council of ministers yesterday night. The new Cabinet has 57 ministers.

Among them 24 are Cabinet ministers, 21 are Ministers of State and 9 are Ministers of State with Independent Charge.

The portfolios have not yet been allocated. Just the oath of office was administered at Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony.

As expected Amit Shah joined the Cabinet. He is likely to handle one of the top four ministers in the Cabinet.

The new Cabinet will hold its first meeting today at 5:00 p.m. Though there is no fixed agenda for this meeting, sources stated that the possible date for convening the Parliament session would be decided.

Several former ministers have dropped in the new Cabinet and some new ministers have joined. Among the former ministers that dropped include Arun Jaitley who voluntarily withdrew due to his poor health.

Others include Sushma Swaraj, Suresh Prabhu, J P Nadda, Maneka Gandhi, Uma Bharti, Radha Mohan Singh, Manoj Sinha, K J Alphons, Chaudhary Birender Singh, Mahesh Sharma, and Jual Oram.

As Amit Shah joined the Cabinet, it is expected that J P Nadda will take on the mantle of the BJP president and Maneka Gandhi might get the position of Speaker in Lok Sabha.

In the Cabinet, 20 members took the oath as first-time ministers.

Apart from Amit Shah, the new ministers include Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Pralhad Joshi, Arjun Munda, Arvind Sawant, S Jaishankar, Prahalad Singh Patel, Angadi Suresh Channabasappa, Rattan Lal Kataria, G Kishan Reddy, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Nityanand Rai, V Muraleedharan, Renuka Singh Saruta, Rameswar Teli, Kailash Choudhary, Som Parkash, Anurag Thakur, Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre, and Deboshree Choudhury.

In the meantime, as per Zee Business TV, the Union Budget 2019 will be presented in the first week of July.

Image credit:  Narendra Modi at a BJP rall image by Al Jazeera English is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Image Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aljazeeraenglish/3479447773