Women power in Narendra Modi Cabinet

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted many fresh faces including a record number of women. Seven women MPs including from BJP’s UP ally Apna Dal have been inducted into the council of ministers. The seven women who took oath today have been sworn in as ministers of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government keeping in mind the diversity in terms of representation of caste, religion and gender.

With the new entrants, the Union Cabinet has a total of 11 women ministers, changing the perspective the Modi cabinet had in 2019 about the meagre representation of women. When the Modi cabinet took oath in 2019, it was criticised for scanty representation of women with only three cabinet ministers and 3 ministers of state. With Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigning, the number of cabinet ministers came down to two — Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani. The seven women MPs who were sworn in on Wednesday are likely to get ministers of state with the number of cabinet ministers remaining two. Niranjan Jyoti, Renuka Singh, and Debasree Chaudhury were the ministers of state. Among them, Debasree Chaudhury has been dropped in this reshuffle.

The newly sworn in woman ministers include MP from Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi, Anupriya Singh Patel from MIrzapur, Shobha Karandlaje from Udupi Chikmagalur Constituency, MP from Surat Darshana Vikram Jardosh, Annpurna from Koderma Jharkhand, Pratima Bhaumik from Tripura East and Bharati Pravin Pawar from Dindori Maharashtra.