PM Modi reshuffles cabinet; Jyotiraditya Scindia among others take oath

It is the first cabinet expansion of PM Modi'ssecond term in office. The cabinet list includes new and existing ministers. President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office to the new ministers at the Durbar Hall in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Narayan Tatu Rane, Sarbananda Sonowal and Dr Virendra Kumar took oath as ministers with PM Modi andhome minister Amit Shah in attendance.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ramachandra Prasad Singhand Ashwini Vasihnaw also took oath.Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh Mandaviya, Bhupender Yadav, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Kiren Rijiju and Raj Kumar Singh were also sworn in as ministers in the cabinet by President Kovind.

Parshottam Rupala, G Kishan Reddy and Anurag Thakur were also inducted as ministers includingPankaj Choudhary, Anupriya Singh Patel and Satya Pal Singh Baghel.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Shobha Karandlaje and Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma were also sworn in as ministers.A Narayanaswamy, Kaushal Kishore and Ajay Bhatt tookoath as ministers includingMeenakshi Lekhi, Darshana Vikram Jardosh and Annpurna Devi.

BL Verma, Ajay Kumar and Chauhan Devusinh also took oath as cabinet ministers.Bhagwanth Khuba, Kapil Moreshwar Patil and Pratima Bhoumik also took oath.

Subhas Sarkar, Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Bishweswar Tudu and Shantanu Thakur took oath as ministers.

There were 15 ministers inducted into the Union Cabinet including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Anurag Thakur, Kiren Rijijuand Hardeep Puri with 28 ministers inducted as ministers of state including Meenakshi Lekhi, Pankaj Choudhary, Anupriya Patel and Karandlaje.

Ahead of announcing the cabinet reshuffle by the Modi government, several ministers on Wednesday handed over their resignation including health minister Harsh Vardhan, education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and chemicals and fertilisers minister D V Sadananda Gowda.

Minister of state for environment Babul Supriyo also resigned from the Union Cabinet including minister of state for women and child development Debasree Chaudhuri and minister of stateShakti Rattan Lal Kataria.

Union Minister for law and information technologyRavi Shankar Prasad also resigned from the cabinet.

Several ministers had earlier met PM Modi at hisresidence ahead of the reshuffle including BJP's Narayan Rane, Sarbananda Sonowal, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bhupender Yadav, Sunita Duggal, JD(U)'s R C P Singh, LJP's Pashupati Paras,Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel andMeenakshi Lekhi among others.

(With inputs from Agencies)