NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah and senior leaders Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Ravi Shankar Prasad are set to be sworn in as Cabinet ministers along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening.

The news of Shah joining the Cabinet came from Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani, who tweeted a congratulatory message.

"Had a courtesy meeting with our mentor Amit Shah and gave my best wishes to him on his inclusion as a strong member of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers," he tweeted.

Shah was part of a meeting Modi held at his residence at 4.30 pm with the MPs selected for ministerial berths. There have been indications that senior leader Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh may also join Modi's new cabinet.

The following are most likely to be part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new cabinet and could be sworn in this evening.

  1. Amit Shah

  2. R S Prasad

  3. Piyush Goyal

  4. Babul Supriyo

  5. S Jaishankar

  6. Anurag Thakur

  7. Purushottam Rupala

  8. Jitendra Singh

  9. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

  10. Prahlad Patel

  11. Prahlad Joshi

  12. Suresh Agadi

  13. Rita Bahuguna Joshi

  14. Smriti Irani

  15. Sadanand Gowda

  16. Arjun Meghwal

  17. Kishan Reddy

  18. Ramchandra Prasad Singh

  19. Mansukh L. Mandaviya

  20. Krishnapal Gurjar

  21. Parshottam Rupala

  22. Ramdas Athawale

  23. Sanjeev Balyan

  24. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore

  25. Sadhvi Jyoti Niranjan

  26. Thawar Chand Gehlot

  27. Rao Inderjit

  28. Giriraj Singh

  29. Kailash Choudhary

  30. Rajnath Singh

  31. Nityanand Rai

  32. K P Ravindran

  33. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank"

  34. OP Ravindranath Kumar

  35. Ram Vilas Paswan

  36. Raosaheb Danve

  37. Nitin Gadkari

  38. Som Prakash

  39. Rameswar Teli

  40. Sripad Naik

  41. Gajendra Shekhawat

  42. General VK Singh

  43. Mahesh Sharma

  44. Devashree Raiganj

  45. Sanjay Dohatare

  46. Santosh Gangwar


The BJP has refrained from making any official comment about the likely members of the government, with its leaders asserting that it is the prime minister's prerogative.

Senior party leaders like Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani are likely to join the second Modi government after being its members in its first avatar.

The swearing-in ceremony in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan is expected to be grand affair with about 8,000 guests, including leaders from the BIMSTEC countries, opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, chief ministers, corporate honchos and film stars, watching as President Ram Nath Kovind administers the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year-old Modi and his ministerial colleagues.