Women representation goes up to eight
New Delhi: First time Uttar Pradesh MP Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti is the lone woman face in Sunday's expansion of the Union Cabinet which took the total representation of the fairer sex to eight. Forty-year-old Jyoti is a religious preacher and won the lok Sabha polls from Fatehpur constituency. She has been inducted as Minister of State.Seven women Ministers including six with Cabinet rank were included in the Council of Ministers in May. The Women Cabinet Ministers are Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharti Najma Heptulla, Maneka Gandhi, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Zubin Irani. Nirmala Sitharaman is a Minister of State with Independent Charge. Incidentally, both the youngest and the oldest members in the Modi cabinet also happens to be women -Smriti and Najma.
Cong stays away from swearing-in ceremony
New Delhi: Congress kept away from the oath-taking ceremony of 21 new Ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers here. “Both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were invited to the ceremony,” Power Minister Piyush Goyal said after the swearing-in ceremony here. Asked if there was any communication from the Congress on whether they will attend the ceremony or not, Goyal did not give any details. However, it was not clear whether any other Congress leader, apart from Gandhi and Singh, were invited for the ceremony. Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav was the lone Opposition leader present at Modi's Cabinet expansion exercise.
‘Kurta-pyjama' favoured attire at OATH ceremony
New Delhi: Most of the Ministers who were sworn-in in Modi's expanded Council of Ministers were dressed in traditional kurta-pyjama except Manohar Parrikar, Suresh Prabhu and Rajyavardhan
Singh Rathore. While Parrikar and Prabhu were dressed in shirt and trousers, Rathore donned a 'bandhgala' with a colourful Rajasthani turban during the nearly 45-minute oath-taking ceremony in the historic Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan here. Most of the leaders present, apart from the new inductees , were also attired in white kurta-pyjama and colourful vests. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi wore white kurta- pyjama with black Nehru jacket, BJP president Amit Shah was in a golden raw silk kurta with white pyjama and black vest. While Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti was dressed in all saffron attire, Sanwar lal Jat from Rajasthan wore a traditional red turban.
BIRENDER MAKES IT as fifth from Haryana
New Delhi: With the induction of Haryana leader Birender Singh as a Minister in the Narendra Modi Government, the State where BJP recently won in Assembly polls for the first time now has five representatives in the Union Cabinet. Haryana has three Union Ministers of State in the Narendra Modi Government — Krishan Pal Gujjar, Rao Inderjit Singh and Gen. (retd) VK Singh — while Birender, who was inducted as a Cabinet Minister, shares that status with Sushma Swaraj, the Foreign Minister who, too, hails from Haryana. Birender has been a five-time legislator from Haryana's Uchana constituency (1977-82, 1982-84, 1994-96, 1996-2000 and 2005-09) and served three terms a State Cabinet Minister.
No Kerala face in Union Cabinet
New Delhi: Kerala, which rejected the BJP in the lok Sabha elections, does not have any representation in the Union Council of Ministers even after its expansion on Sunday. BJP, which is yet to open its account in the State, had given a ministerial berth to its veteran leader O Rajagopal in Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime in 1999. He was a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh. Rajagopal was inducted as a Minister of State for Railways in the first NDA Government.BJP's State unit chief V Muraleedharan said Kerala was not represented in the Narendra Modi Government as the party could not win a single seat from the southern State in lok Sabha polls.