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.