The Aryavarth Express
Agency (New Delhi): As many as eleven members of the new Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sworn in on Sunday evening, are from the Rajya Sabha. The Council of Ministers in Modi 3.0 also includes 59 newly-elected MPs from the Lok Sabha.
Two of the new ministers of state, Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian, are not currently members of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha and are required to become members of Parliament within six months of their oath-taking.
A total of 72 members, including Prime Minister Modi, 30 cabinet ministers, 5 Ministers of State with Independent Charge, and 36 Ministers of State, were sworn in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Among the 31 cabinet ministers, including PM Modi, five are Rajya Sabha members. Additionally, six other Rajya Sabha members have been appointed as ministers of state. Rajya Sabha members make up around 15 percent of the new Council of Ministers.
The Rajya Sabha members who have been appointed as Cabinet ministers include Jagat Prakash Nadda, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Hardeep Singh Puri.
Sarbananda Sonowal and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who are currently Rajya Sabha members, have been elected to the Lok Sabha this time. L Murugan, who contested the Lok Sabha election from the Nilgiri constituency reserved for Scheduled Castes, lost to the DMK.
The Rajya Sabha members who have been inducted as Ministers of State are Ramdas Athawale, Ramnath Thakur, B L Verma, L Murugan, Satish Chandra Dubey, and Pabitra Margherita.