New Delhi: In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term, 37 ministers have been excluded from the government, including seven with cabinet rank. Notable among these are Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur, and Narayan Rane.
Parshottam Rupala, Arjun Munda, RK Singh, and Mahendra Nath Pandey, who held cabinet positions in the previous government, were also not retained in the Council of Ministers that took oath on Sunday.
All three Ministers with Independent Charge have been retained, but out of 42 ministers of state, 30 have been dropped.
Ministers not retained include VK Singh, Faggansingh Kulaste, Ashwini Choubey, Danve Raosaheb Dadarao, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Balyan, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Subhas Sarkar, Nisith Pramanik, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, and Pratima Bhoumik.
Others not retained are Meenakshi Lekhi, Munjapara Mahendrabhai, Ajay Kumar Mishra, Kailash Choudhary, Kapil Moreshwar Patil, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Kaushal Kishore, Bhagwanth Khubha, and V. Muraleedharan.
Additionally, Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, John Barla, Bishweswar Tudu, Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Devusinh Chauhan, Ajay Bhatt, A. Narayanaswamy, Som Parkash, Rameswar Teli, and Darshana Vikram Jardosh did not make it to the new Council of Ministers.
Eighteen of the dropped ministers had lost their elections. L Murugan is the only Minister of State from the previous government who lost the election but has been retained. He remains a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Smriti Irani, a Cabinet Minister in both terms of the Modi government, lost the election in Amethi to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s aide Kishori Lal Sharma by over 1.69 lakh votes. Irani had held the HRD and Textile portfolios in the first term and Women and Child Development and Minority Affairs in the second term.
Parshottam Rupala, the former Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying, won the Rajkot Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat with a record margin of around five lakh votes, despite controversy over his remarks about the Kshatriya community. However, his deputy in the Fisheries Ministry, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, has been dropped after losing his Muzaffarnagar seat by over 24,000 votes.
Anurag Thakur, who held dual charge of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat for the fifth consecutive time but was not retained.
Mahendra Nath Pandey, the former Minister of Heavy Industries, lost his Chandauli seat to Samajwadi Party’s Birendra Singh.
Raj Kumar Singh, earlier the Union Minister for Power and Renewable Energy, lost his seat in Bihar’s Arrah to CPI(ML)-Liberation’s Sudama Prasad by 59,808 votes.Narayan Rane, the former MSME Minister, won the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
This marked the BJP’s first win in the coastal Konkan region, traditionally a Shiv Sena stronghold. Rane, a former Maharashtra CM, joined the BJP in 2019 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha before contesting his first Lok Sabha election.
Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who was the Minister of State for Skill Development, Electronics and IT, and Jalshakti, lost the Thiruvananthapuram seat to Congress’ Shashi Tharoor.
Reflecting on his defeat, Chandrashekhar wrote on X about his 18-year public service career and thanked supporters and colleagues.
An initial post on his handle on social media platform X said, “Today curtains down on my 18-year stint in public service, of which three years I had the privilege to serve with PM @narendramodi ji’s TeamModi2.0.
“I certainly didn’t intend to end my 18 years of public service as a candidate who lost an election, but that’s how it’s turned out.” The post also stated that Chandrasekhar extends his thanks to everyone he met and those who supported him, especially the karyakartas and leaders who “inspired and energised” him.
“Thanks also to my colleagues in the government over the last three years. As a @BJP4India karyakarta, I will continue to support and work in the party,” it said.
Shortly thereafter, Chandrasekhar deleted the first post and issued a new one saying that the earlier one was by an intern and it “created some confusion among a section of people about my future political work”.
“Today marks the end of my 18 years long stint as a MP and my three years as Minister of State in the Council of Ministers under Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji.
“A tweet - tweeted by a new young intern in my team - thanking everyone for their inspiration and support during these 18 years of public service as MP, has created some confusion among a section of people about my future political work,” the new post on X said.
It further said that to avoid any further complexities on this, the earlier tweet stands deleted.
“My work and commitment to taking India forward and Thiruvananthapuram, as a karyakarta of BJP remains as relentless as before. Thank you all who replied/msgd/called,” the new post said.
Former Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Nisith Pramanik lost the Cooch Behar seat in West Bengal to TMC’s Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia by 39,250 votes.
Subhas Sarkar, former MoS for Education, lost the Bankura seat to Trinamool Congress’s Arup Chakraborty by 32,778 votes.