6 women take oath, same number as in outgoing council of ministers

NEW DELHI: Women ministers constitute over 10% of the Union council of ministers sworn in on Wednesday. Of the six administered the ministerial oath, three are Cabinet ministers and three, ministers of state.
In the outgoing council of ministers, there were six women ministers assigned Cabinet rank and two MoS.
The three women ministers conferred Cabinet rank on Wednesday — Nirmala Sitharaman, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Zubin Irani — had enjoyed the same status in the erstwhile Modi Cabinet. While Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha MP, was defence minister in the last government, Harsimrat, re-elected from Bathinda, was the food processing minister.
Irani was hailed by many as a ‘giant-slayer’ after she defeated Congress president and three-time MP Rahul Gandhi in his family bastion of Amethi on May 23. She was inducted in the erstwhile Modi Cabinet first as HRD minister, but then shifted to I&B ministry and finally, to textiles ministry.
Among three women ministers of state, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti has been inducted into the council of ministers for the second time. She had served as minister of state for food processing in the last term. The other two women assigned MoS rank — Renuka Singh Saruta and Debasree Chaudhuri — are both first time MPs. Chaudhuri won from Raiganj constituency in West Bengal and Saruta from Sarguja in Chhattisgarh.
The three women ministers from the outgoing Cabinet left out this time include Sushma Swaraj who was in charge of external affairs portfolio in the last government; eight-time MP and erstwhile women and child minister Maneka Gandhi; and Uma Bharati who looked after drinking water and sanitation. Both Sushma and Uma had earlier announced that they would not be seeking re-election to the Lok Sabha. Anupriya Patel, who served in the ministry of health and family welfare as an MOS, was also left out.
^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]}

References

1. ^{^} Nirmala Sitharaman (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
2. ^{^} Harsimrat Kaur Badal (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
3. ^{^} Rahul Gandhi (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
4. ^{^} Amethi (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
5. ^{^} West Bengal (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
6. ^{^} Chhattisgarh (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
7. ^{^} Lok Sabha (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

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