India: 43 leaders to take oath in Union Cabinet expansion today, reports ANI

New Delhi: As many as 43 new ministers, including big names like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Anurag Thakur, are all set to be sworn in this evening in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new Cabinet, which will be one of the most inclusive with record representation of SC, ST members.

Ahead of the Cabinet expansion, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar and other many union ministers have already resigned from their respective posts.

As per the ANI sources, post-expansion, there will be 12 members from the SC community, including two in the cabinet; eight members will be from Scheduled tribes in the council of ministers out of which three will be in the cabinet.

Here is the final list of 43 new ministers:

1) Bhagwanth Khuba

2) Kapil Moreshwar Patil

3) Pratima Bhoumik

4) Dr. Subhas Sarkar

5) Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad

6) Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh

7) Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar

8) Bishweswar Tudu

9) Shantanu Thakur

10) Dr. Munjapara Mahendrabhai

11) John Barla

12) Dr. L. Murugan

13) Nisith Pramanik

14) Pankaj Choudhary

15) Anupriya Singh Patel

16) Dr. Satya Pal Singh Baghel

17) Rajeev Chandrasekhar

18) Shobha Karandlaje

19) Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma

20) Darshana Vikram Jardosh

21) Meenakashi Lekhi

22) Annpurna Devi

23) A. Narayanaswamy

24) Kaushal Kishore

25) Ajay Bhatt

26) B. L. Verma

27) Ajay Kumar

28) Chauhan Devusinh

29) Narayan Tatu Rane

30) Sarbananda Sonowal

31) Dr. Virendra Kumar

32) Jyotiraditya M Scindia

33) Ramchandra Prasad Singh

34) Ashwini Vaishnaw

35) Pashu Pati Kumar Paras

36) Kiren Rijiju

37) Raj Kumar Singh

38) Hardeep Singh Puri

39) Mansukh Mandaviya

40) Bhupender Yadav

41) Parshottam Rupala

42) G. Kishan Reddy

43) Anurag Singh Thakur

After cabinet expansion, the Modi government is expected to have 27 OBC leaders out of which five will be in the cabinet.

Sources further informed that there will be a substantial increase in the number of professionals in the cabinet.

"Post expansion there will be 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers, and seven civil servants in total," the sources said.

Union ministers R K Singh, Mansukh Mandaviya and Hardeep Singh Puri may also be promoted, they said.

BJP president J P Nadda was present during the meetings.

The expansion exercise is scheduled to be held at 6 pm at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

As per earlier reports, there will be a special focus on bringing down the average age of the Modi cabinet, post-expansion there will be 14 ministers below the age of 50, and six will be in the cabinet.

To bring in the administrative and federal experience of governance, 39 former MLAs and four former Chief Minister's will be part of the expanded cabinet

Leaders from minority communities will also find greater representation after rejig.

It is learned that one member each from Christian, Muslim, and Sikh communities and two Buddhists to be included.

After expansion, it is learnt that there will also be five ministers from North East India in total.

This will be the first reshuffle in his Council of Ministers by Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.