INDIA: Sushma Swaraj among several ex-ministers dropped (video of swearing-in ceremony)

 

 

Honoured to serve India! Watch the oath taking ceremony.

Honoured to serve India! Watch the oath taking ceremony.

Posted by Narendra Modi on Thursday, May 30, 2019

 

New Delhi (IANS): In a major surprise, Sushma Swaraj, one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP, was among seven ministers of the previous Council of Ministers to be dropped as Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed his government for the second term.

The 67-year-old Swaraj who has held key positions in the party and its governments since decades was conspicuous by her absence in the new Cabinet.

Although the reasons for Swaraj’s omission were not immediately clear, the main reason possibly could be her ill-health.

Swaraj, who was External Affairs Minister during the previous term of Modi government, did not contest the Lok Sabha elections this time, declaring that her health did not permit her to enter the fray and campaign.

During her tenure as the External Affairs Minister, she was very popular among the Indian diaspora and the compatriots stranded anywhere across the globe. Just one tweet to her about any problem any Indian faced anywhere and she would immediately swing into action and activate the Indian mission in those countries for help.

When the BJP was in Opposition during the UPA government from 2004 to 2014, Swaraj was the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a successful one.

 

 

Here is the full list of those who took the oath:

Cabinet Ministers Union Minister of State,

Independent Charge

Ministers of State
Rajnath Singh Santosh K Gangwar Faggansingh Kulaste
Amit Shah Rao Indrajit Singh Ashwini Kumar Choubey
Nitin Gadkari Shripad Y Naik Arjun Ram Meghwal
DV Sadanand Gowda Dr. Jitendra Singh General (Retd.) V. K. Singh
Nirmala Sitharaman Kiren Rijiju Krishan Pal
Ram Vilas Paswan Prahalad Singh Patel Danve Raosaheb Dadarao
Narendra Singh Tomar Raj Kumar Singh G. Kishan Reddy
Ravi Shankar Prasad Hardeep Singh Puri Parshottam Rupala
Harsimrat Kaur Badal Mansukh Mandaviya Ramdas Athawale
Thawar Chand Gehlot Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
Dr. S Jaishankar Babul Supriyo
Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank Sanjeev Kumar Balyan
Arjun Munda Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao
Smriti Irani Anurag Singh Thakur
Dr. Harshvardhan Angadi Suresh Channabasappa
Prakash Javadekar Nityanand Rai
Piyush Goyal Rattan Lal Kataria
Dharmendra Pradhan V. Muraleedharan
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Renuka Singh Saruta
Prahalad Joshi Som Parkash
Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey Rameswar Teli
Arvind Sawant Pratap Chandra Sarangi
Giriraj Singh Kailash Choudhary
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat Debasree Chowdhury

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