Nineteen new Ministers of State (MoS) were inducted in the Union Council of Ministers in a major expansion.
These new ministers were administered oath of office and secrecy by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
This was the second expansion of the NDA government led by PM Narendra Modi. Of the 19 new ministers, 17 are from the BJP, one each from Apna Dal and RPI.
Besides, induction of these new ministers, Minister of State (MoS) Environment, Forests and Climate Change with independent charge, Prakash Javdekar was elevated to the Cabinet rank.
The Ministers of State inducted are
- Faggan Singh Kulste, Ramesh Jigjinagi, S S Ahluwalia, Vijay Goel, Rajen Gohain, Ramdas Athawale, Parshottam Rupala, Anil Madhav Dave, M J Akbar, Jaswant Sinh Bhabhor, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Ajay Tamta, Smt. Krishna Raj, Mansukh Mandaviya, Anupriya Patel, C R Chaudhary, P P Chaudhary, Dr Subhash Bhamre.
Among the newly inducted Ministers, three each are from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Rajasthan got four berths while Maharashtra got two. There is one Minister each from Assam, West Bengal, Karnataka and Uttarakhand.
Comment
- With the induction of 19 MoS, total number of Ministers in the Union Council has gone up to 83, exceeding the constitutional cap of 82.
- As per provisions of Article 75, the total number cannot exceed 82 i.e. 15% of the total number of members of Lok Sabha.
- This provision of constitutional cap for total number of Ministers in the Union Council was added by the 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003.