As the Parliamentary Lok Sabha elections are over, the BJP has won 240 constituencies where it did not get a majority. Subsequently, the National Democratic Progressive Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP forms the government. Modi will take over as the Prime Minister on Sunday. His swearing-in ceremony will be held at 7.15 pm tonight.
In this case, the three ministers, namely Hardeep Singh Puri, Jitendra Singh and Bhupender Yadav, who were in the Union Cabinet of the previous Modi government, have been retained as Union Ministers again. Here is a brief look at these three ministers.
Hardeep Singh Puri
Diplomat-turned-politician Hardeep Singh Puri has served in the Council of Ministers since September 2017 and in the Cabinet since July 2021. He has previously held portfolios of Housing and Urban Affairs and Petroleum and Natural Gas.
He received a call from the Prime Minister’s Office earlier on Sunday, informing him that he will be part of the Modi government. Subsequently, he attended a meeting at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on Sunday morning along with other MPs from the BJP and its allies who could take the oath of office.
Born in Delhi in 1952 to a family of partition refugees, Hardeep Singh Puri joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1974 and served as ambassador to the UN, Brazil, Japan and the UK. After retirement, he joined the BJP in 2013. He was associated with the Akila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, while studying at Delhi University’s Hindu College.
For the past few years, Puri headed the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, while also proposing the construction of a new Parliament building. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 while he was the Minister of Petroleum. So, the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia. Back then, he supported India’s desire to import Russian oil.
Puri has been sworn in as a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh for the second time. In 2019, he contested the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat on behalf of the BJP and lost.
Bhupender Yadav
Bhupender Yadav, one of BJP’s key strategists who played a significant role in delivering electoral victories in the Odisha state assembly and Lok Sabha elections, is set to be re-inducted into the cabinet. Yadav, 54, held key portfolios of environment, forest and climate change and labor and employment in the outgoing cabinet.
He made his electoral debut during the 2024 general elections and won the Alwar Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan. Prior to this, he had a long track record of legislative experience as a member of the Rajya Sabha and a part of several parliamentary committees.
Bhupender Yadav was inducted into the Union Cabinet in July 2021 and has also been instrumental in BJP’s election management for states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat and Jharkhand. Bhupender Yadav, a lawyer by profession, hails from Rajasthan and has written two books, one on the party and the other on the Supreme Court and forest conservation.
Bhupender Yadav, who contested from Rajasthan’s Alwar Lok Sabha seat, defeated Congress’s Lalit Yadav by a margin of 48,282 votes.
Jitendra Singh
Dr. Jitendra Singh was the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Science and Technology, Prime Minister’s Office.
A doctor by training, he defeated former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad by a margin of 60,000 votes in his first election battle in the Udhampur parliamentary seat in 2014. He has been a strong opponent of Article 370 of the Constitution, which guarantees special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
This year, he defeated Lal Singh of the Congress by a margin of 1.22 lakh votes and created history by winning from Udhampur for the third time after two full terms.
The 67-year-old is also a member of the National Executive Committee of the BJP. Before joining politics, Singh was a newspaper columnist, also writing for local newspapers in Jammu and Kashmir.
