Full list: Amit Shah, S Jaishankar Among 19 First-time Ministers In Modi 2.0 Cabinet

Som Prakash is a former IAS officer in Punjab and two-time MLA from the Phagwara Assembly constituency. He is one of the new faces in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government. The first-time Member of Parliament from Hoshiarpur (reserved) defeated his nearest Congress rival Raj Kumar Chabbewal by 93,898 votes.

Renuka Singh Saruta is a powerful tribal face of BJP in the Sarguja region of Chhattisgarh. She defeated senior Congress leader Khelsai Singh by over 1.5 lakh votes. (PIC/PTI)

Pratap Chandra Sarangi, BJP MP from Balasore in Odisha, received the loudest applause as he took oath as a minister. He is known for a simple lifestyle and using bicycle as a mode of transport.

Rameswar Teli, a two-term MP from Dibrugarh in Assam and a tea-tribe leader who is into active politics since his student days, likes to keeps a low profile. The 49-year-old leader had made his foray into electoral politics in 2001 when he won from Duliajan assembly constituency, which is under Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, on a BJP ticket and retained it in 2006. He was, however, defeated by the Congress candidate in the assembly polls in 2011. He then won the Lok Sabha election three years later. (PIC tweeted by Biren Singh)

The BJP won 25 of 28 seats in Karnataka despite a Congress-JD(S) alliance and two senior party MPs from the state have made it the council of minsters for the first time - Suresh Angadi from Belgaum and Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad. (PIC/Pratap Simha- Twitter)

Seen as the BJP's Yadav face in Bihar, where the party has been traditionally identified with the upper castes and the members of his community have been ardent supporters of Lalu Prasad's RJD, Nityanand Rai has undergone a meteoric rise in the last half decade. Rai was associated with the ABVP in the 1980s. People in the Sangh Parivar recall the stout resistance he had put up against the efforts of Prasad, who was then the Chief Minister of Bihar, to stop the rath yatra of LK Advani. He retained his seat in the recent general elections wherein he defeated former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha by over 2.77 lakh votes. (PIC/PTI)

Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank again won from Haridwar Lok Sabha seat and his inclusion gives representation to Uttarakhand in the Union Council of Ministers. (PIC/PTI)

From Kerala, the V. Muraleedharan has been inducted in the council of ministers. Said to be a close aide of Amit Shah, Muraleedharan has played a key role in strengthening the BJP’s roots in the southern state. He has been a full-time member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and is an active member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in his home town, Kozhikode. (PIC/PTI)

BJP MP from Secunderabad in Telangana G. Kishan Reddy is also a first-time minister.

Rattan Lal Kataria's name has been a surprise inclusion in the list. Kataria defeated former union minister Kumari Selja in Ambala.

Kailash Chowdhary, who defeated former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh in Barmer, was also sworn in as a minister.

S Jaishankar, one of the longest serving foreign secretaries, played a key role in shaping Modi's foreign policy during his first term, which saw a significant growth and expansion of India's ties with key countries, particularly the US and the Arab nations. He was the Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018.

Sanjay Dhotre: An engineer who is winner of an award in the agriculture sector, Sanjay Dhotre is a four-time BJP MP from Akola in Maharashtra. Born into a Maratha family, Dhotre graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Government College of Engineering, Amravati. From early on, he was associated with the BJP. He was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1999. In 2004, he made his Lok Sabha debut.

Giving greater representation to West Bengal where the BJP recorded a very impressive performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted Debosree Chaudhary, party MP from Raiganj, as a minister of state.

Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant, who defeated Congress leader Milind Deora, also got a ministerial berth in the Cabinet as a first time minister. (PIC/PTI)

Former Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda had played a role in BJP's growth in the state and has won the Lok Sabha poll from Khunti. (PIC/PTI)

With J.P. Nadda not part of the council of ministers, Anurag Thakur, apart MP from Hamirpur and son of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, will represent Himachal Pradesh in the cabinet. He has been made a minister of state.

The Modi government sworn in on Thursday has 20 first-time union ministers including BJP chief Amit Shah, fomer Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and two former chief ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank Aand Arjun Munda. Amit Shah has joined the ministry after leading the BJP to a string of election victories. Five of the first timers are cabinet ministers and the remaining are ministers of state.