In a major overhaul, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought in Sarbananda Sonowal, Narayan Rane and Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Cabinet while dropping as many as 12 ministers including Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar.
Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State, comprising new faces and those elevated, were sworn in at a ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. While most of the members took oath in Hindi, a few of them took it in English.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
An extensive and protracted review was carried out by Modi and the BJP top brass through a series of meetings with ministers ahead of Wednesday's big exercise. These meetings were also held in the wake of widespread criticism of the Central government's handling of the COVID crisis.
The 16 first-time MPs who were sworn in as ministers include Narayan Tatu Rane, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Annpurna Devi, A Narayanaswamy, Ajay Bhatt, B L Verma, Pratima Bhoumik, Subhas Sarkar, Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad and Rajkumar Ranjan Singh.
Here's all you need to know about Sushri Pratima Bhoumik.
Fifty-two-year-old Pratima Bhowmik, popularly known as 'Pratima di' Wednesday scripted history, becoming the only politician from Tripura to be sworn-in as a central minister. She is now the Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
Earlier, Santosh Mohan Deb and Triguna Sen were elected as member of Parliament from Tripura and inducted in the central cabinet. However, they were not from Tripura. While Deb hailed from Silchar in Assam, Sen was from West Bengal.
Sushri Pratima Bhoumik, 52, is a Lok Sabha MP for Tripura West in Tripura, serving her 1 st term as MP. Prior to this, she was the general secretary of the Tripura unit of BJP, but relinquished the post after being elected as Member of Parliament and at present holds the post of vice-president of the state unit. She comes from a humble background, practices farming. Bhoumik holds a Graduate degree in Bio-Science from Women's College, Tripura University
On Bhoumik's achievement, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb tweeted: "A moment of immense pride for #Tripura that @PratimaBhoumik ji, foremost representative of #NariShakti of the state, has joined PM Shri @narendramodi led Union Council of Ministers." Bhowmick is a first time MP, elected from West Tripura constituency in the last general elections.
