Modi govt 3.0: Seven women members, including Nirmala Sitharaman, Annapurna Devi and Anupriya Singh Patel, were sworn in as the ministers in the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi cabinet at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday (June 9).
Narendra Modi took oath as India's Prime Minister at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the national capital on Sunday evening for a third straight term, equalling the feat of the first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. PM Modi is the second person in India's history to become the Prime Minister for three successive terms. The country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had won the 1952, 1957 and 1962 general elections.
Check list of women Ministers in new Modi Cabinet
- Nirmala Sitharaman: Nirmala Sitharaman, who joined the likes of Arun Jaitley and Manmohan Singh by serving a full term as Finance Minister and is credited with carrying forward second-generation reforms, created a record by being the first woman to be sworn in as minister for the third consecutive term of the Modi government. Being a fiery spokesperson of the BJP, she was inducted into the Cabinet when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of the NDA government in 2014.
- Annapurna Devi: Politics was never on the cards for homemaker Annapurna Devi, who was sworn in as Union Minister in the Narendra Modi government. Her life took a dramatic turn when her husband, Ramesh Yadav, an RJD legislator, died suddenly in 1998. Thrust into the political arena by fate, she embarked on an arduous journey down an untrodden path. Her first ministerial berth in 2021 had already raised many eyebrows. To outsiders, it seemed a surprising choice, but to insiders, it was a masterstroke—a calculated bid to solidify the OBC vote bank in Jharkhand. Her influence among the OBCs extends beyond the mica-belt of Koderma, reaching across the entire state, making her a pivotal player in the political landscape.
- Anupriya Singh Patel: Anupriya Singh Patel is the president of Apna Dal (Soneylal) party since 2016 and was the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry of India in the last government. She represents Mirzapur in the Lok Sabha since 2014. Patel was also the Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from 2016 to 2019. In the 2014 general election, Patel's party campaigned in alliance with the BJP.
- Shobha Karandlaje: An outspoken politician from the RSS background who does not mince words when it comes to contentious issues like religious extremism, Shobha Karandlaje, a close confidante of state BJP strongman B S Yediyurappa, has once again secured a place in the union government. A three-time Lok Sabha member, she was a surprise pick to the Union Council of Ministers, during the rejig of the previous Modi government in 2021, and served as the Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
- Raksha Khadse: It was a twist of fate that thrust Raksha Khadse, the three-term Lok Sabha member from Raver in north Maharashtra, into the rough and tumble of national politics. Raksha Khadse, 37, the daughter-in-law of former BJP leader Eknath Khadse, started her political innings as a sarpanch of Kothali village in the state's Jalgaon district in 2010, the native place of the family. The death by suicide of her husband Nikhil in 2013 after a loss in the Maharashtra Legislative Council election by a whisker to NCP leader Manish Jain prompted her to contest the Lok Sabha elections in Raver in 2014. Raksha Khadse, then a 26-year-old, won the Raver Lok Sabha seat against NCP candidate Manish Jain, avenging her husband's defeat.
- Savitri Thakur: Savitri Thakur, who won from Dhar (Scheduled Tribe reserved) seat in Madhya Pradesh in the recently held general elections, was on Sunday sworn in as a minister of state in the Narendra Modi government. Thakur (46), a prominent woman tribal leader of the BJP in the state, won the Lok Sabha poll in 2014 but was denied a ticket in the 2019 edition. In the 2024 polls, she defeated the Congress' Radheshyam Muvel by 2.18 lakh votes. She was first elected as a member of the district panchayat in 2003 and later became its president. After holding various party posts at the state and national level, she was given a ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
- Nimuben Bambhaniya: Nimuben Bambhaniya, one of the three women candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to win the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat, has been inducted into the Union cabinet as a minister of state. The 57-year-old defeated Aam Aadmi Party's Umesh Makwana by a huge margin of 4.55 lakh votes in the Bhavnagar constituency. She served as the mayor of Bhavnagar for two terms between 2009-10 and 2015-18 and was the vice president of the BJP Mahila Morcha's state unit between 2013 and 2021. A former teacher, Bambhaniya joined the BJP in 2004 and entered electoral politics by contesting and winning the civic polls for three terms. She hails from the OBC Koli community. Her husband runs a school in Bhavnagar.
Women ministers in Modi 2.0
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had six women ministers in his second tenure in 2019. Nirmala Sitharaman, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Smriti Zubin Irani, Sushri Debasree Chaudhuri, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Renuka Singh Saruta were the ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet.
However, in 2020, Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) Lok Sabha MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Narendra Modi government as a protest against the three farm bills, now repealed.
Later in 2021, the Modi Cabinet inducted seven women ministers-- Shobha Karandlaje, Darshana Vikram Jardosh, Meenakashi Lekhi, Annpurna Devi, Pratima Bhoumik, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar and Anupriya Singh Patel. This was the highest number of women in the Union Council of Ministers in the last 17 years.
Women ministers in 2014
The seven women in the 2014 ministry included Sushma Swaraj, Smriti Irani, Uma Bharati, Harsimrat Kaur, Maneka Gandhi and Nirmala Sitharaman and Dr Najma Heptulla.
Also Read: Six former CMs part of Modi 3.0 Cabinet | Check full list
Also Read: Modi Cabinet 3.0: List of leaders inducted as ministers in BJP-led NDA government
