Seven women ministers in Modi government, including three new faces.
The Oath ceremony for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Council of Ministers took place on 9th June evening at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has seven women ministers, among whom Nirmala Sitharaman and Annapurna Devi have been inducted in Cabinet berth. Three new faces have been introduced while four women from the previous government were retained.Â
As Modi 3.0 is ready to take charge, let’s talk about the woman power in the government this time. The number of women ministers in Modi government has declined comparted to the number in his previous government. Even though six women ministers took oath in 2019, there were 11 women ministers in Modi government after the big reshuffle in the cabinet in 2021, making it the highest number in 17 years. When Narendra Modi became prime minister for the first time in 2014, his government had eight women ministers, while Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments had 10 women ministers each in 2004 and 2009.
Nirmala Sitharaman
Senior BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman has returned as a Union minister for the third time. She was the Finance Minister in the last government, and in 2014, the industry and commerce portfolio. In 2017, Sitharaman became the first full-time woman to become the defence minister of India. As Modi returned to power in 2019 with a crucial mandate, Sitharaman was given the prized finance portfolio. Sitharaman became the first woman to become a full-time finance minister of India in 2019. Indira Gandhi held the finance portfolio for a brief time during her service as a prime minister.
Annapurna Devi
Annapurna Devi is the only other woman besides Sitharaman to be inducted into the Union Cabinet of the Modi 3.0 government. In the previous Modi government, Devi was the Union Minister of Sate (MoS) for Education. Hailing from the Other Backward Class (OBC) Yadav community, Devi won over her opposition in Lok Sabha election by a massive margin of 377,014 votes from Jharkhand. She started her electoral career with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in 1998 and won Assembly elections from Koderma several times. Devi served as a minister of the Jharkhand government in 2012, and was the Jharkhand RJD chief before her crossover to BJP in 2019.
Anupriya Patel
President of the Apna Dal (Sonelal), an NDA partner, Anupriya Patel won the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat defeating her opponent by a margin of over 37,000 votes. Her party’s seat tally notably fell from two to one in this election. Patel was a Professor at Amity University before joining politics and becoming a prominent leader from the OBC Kurmi community. In Modi’s first term, she served as a Minister of State (MoS) Health. She was appointed junior minister for commerce and industry when she returned to Modi’s council in 2021.
Shobha Karandlaje
Known for her outspoken views on Hindutva, Shobha Karandlje comes from a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background which is the ideological fountainhead of BJP. She won the Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore North constituency this year, becoming the first woman MP from the city. She had served as a Cabinet minister for the Karnataka government, the 57-year-old has taken oath as a junior minister. Karandlaje was Minister of State (MoS) for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in the Modi 2.0 government.
Raksha KhadseÂ
One of the new women ministers in Modi government this year, Raksha Khadse is a three-time MP from Raver in Maharashtra. She is the daughter-in-law of former senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse and has work experience as a sarpanch as well as a member of the Zila Parishad. Khadse, along with Heena Gavit, was the youngest MP of the 16th Lok Sabha in 2014. Belonging to an OBC sub-caste, the Leva Patil community, Khadse defeated her opponent in the Lok Sabha election by a margin of 2.72 lakh votes from Raver.Â
Nimuben BambhaniyaÂ
Bambhaniya is among the only three women candidates elected to the Lok Sabha from Gujarat on a BJP ticket. She has joined as one of the newest faces in women ministers in Modi government and took oath as a Minister of State (MoS). She bagged the Bhavnagar Lok Sabha constituency by a remarkable margin of over 4.5 lakh votes. Bambhaniya joined the BJP in 2004. Hailing from the OBC Koli community, she served as mayor of Bhavnagar, and vice president of the BJP Mahila Morcha’s Gujarat unit.
Savitri ThakurÂ
Won from the 29Lok Sabha seats state for BJP – Madhya Pradesh, Savitri Thaku is one of the key tribal leaders of the saffron party in the state. Thakur who is a Class 10 pass out, won from the Dhar Lok Sabha seat defeating her opponent by over two lakh votes. She entered politics in 2003 after working over a decade as a social worker invested in the upliftment of tribal and poor women. She won from the ST-reserved Dhar seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. She was not fielded by the BJP in the 2019 polls, but Thakur has returned to Lok Sabha this year as a MoS and one of the new women ministers in Modi government.
