NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi’s new council of ministers has seven women as against 10 which the outgoing council had.
Among the seven ministers sworn in on Sunday are Nirmala Sitharaman and Annapurna Devi in the Union Cabinet and the rest as Ministers of State.
Among those dropped as ministers are Smriti Irani, Meenakshi Lekhi, Bharti Pawar, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Darshana Jardosh and Pratima Bhoumik.
Ministers of state to be retained on Sunday are Shobha Karandlaje from Karnataka and Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal from UP.
Raksha Khadse, Savitri Thakur and Nimuben Bambhaniya are the new ministers of state.
Irani and Pawar lost the polls from Amethi and Dandori (Maharashtra), respectively.
Darshana Jardosh, Lekhi and Bhoumik were dropped by the BJP.
Annapurna Devi, Karandlaje, Khadse and Patel won their respective Lok Sabha segments this time.
Overall 74 women won the 2024 general election as against 78 in 2019.
PM Modi’s first term in 2014 had eight women ministers.
In the second term, the PM had inducted six women into his council. By the time of the end of 18th Lok Sabha, this number had increased to 10.