June 9th 2024.
On Sunday, the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government was inaugurated with 72 ministers taking their oath. This is only nine less than the maximum number of 81 ministers allowed and six fewer than the previous term's maximum of 78 ministers between 2019 and 2024.
The 72-member council includes the Prime Minister himself, along with other cabinet ministers such as Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, J P Nadda, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, ML Khattar, HD Kumaraswamy, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Virendra Kumar, K Ram Mohan Naidu, Pralhad Joshi, Jual Oram, Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bhupender Yadav, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Annapurna Devi, Kiren Rijiju, Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh Mandaviya, G Kishan Reddy, Chirag Paswan, and CR Paatil.
The remaining 36 ministers are split into five Ministers of State and 31 Ministers of State. These include Rao Inderjit Singh, Jitendra Singh, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Prataprao Jadhav, Jayant Chaudhary, Jitin Prasada, Shripad Naik, Pankaj Chaudhary, Krishan Pal Gurjar, Ramdas Athawale, Ram Nath Thakur, Nityanand Rai, Anupriya Parel, V Sommana, Pemmasani Chandrasekhar, SP Singh Baghel, Shobha Karandlaje, Kirthi Vardhan Singh, B L Varma, Shantanu Thakur, Suresh Gopi, L Murugan, Ajay Tamta, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Kamlesh Paswan, Bhagirath Choudhary, Satish Dubey, Sanjay Seth, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Durga Das Uikey, Raksha Khadse, Sukanta Majumdar, Savitri Thakur, Tokhan Sahu, Rajbhushan Chaudhary, Bupathi Raju Srinivas Varma, Harsh Malhotra, Nimuben Bhamaria, Murlidhar Mohol, and George Kurian.
In the previous term, the Modi government had reached its maximum strength of 78 ministers after expansion in July 2021. However, the outgoing council of ministers had only 72 members, with Prime Minister Modi included.
This third term of the BJP-led NDA government has a maximum of 31 cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, and 36 ministers of state. In the previous term, there were 71 ministers, including 26 cabinet ministers, three Ministers of State, and 42 Ministers of State.
The maximum number of ministers allowed in the Council of Ministers is 81, which includes the Prime Minister, and is 15% of the total strength of 543 in the Lok Sabha. In May 2019, when the Modi government was first sworn in, there were 57 ministers, with 24 as cabinet ministers, nine Ministers of State, and 24 Ministers of State.
During his first term in 2014, Prime Minister Modi had 46 ministers, including 24 cabinet ministers, 10 Ministers of State, and 12 Ministers of State, including himself. In May 2009, the previous government under Manmohan Singh had the maximum strength of 79 ministers, including the Prime Minister. During the first term of UPA, the government also had a maximum of 79 ministers.
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999 had a total of 74 ministers. This third term of the Modi government may see further expansion in the future, but for now, it has a strong team of 72 ministers ready to lead the country.
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