Nirmala Sitharaman, who is among a few who have been Union Minister in both the 2014 and 2019 Modi cabinets, took oath as Union Cabinet Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Union Council of Ministers on Sunday evening in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan. She took the oath in English.
In the 2014 cabinet, she served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs and later the Minister for Commerce and Industry with Independent Charge. In 2017, she was appointed as the Union Defence Minister.
In 2019, Sitharaman assumed charge as the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs.
She was the first woman appointed as the full-time Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs. Earlier, Indira Gandhi had held finance as an additional portfolio for a short duration when she was the prime minister of India.
She was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in the Parliament of India in 2014, and subsequently re-elected in 2016. She has never contested Lok Sabha polls so far.
She has been a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2008.
Sitharaman was born in 1959, in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
She did her schooling and her graduation in economics from Seethaiakshmi Ramaswamy College in Tiruchirapalli. She went on to do her masters in economics from Jawaharla Nehru University, New Delhi.
After completing her studies, Sitharaman served as an assistant to Economist in the Agricultural Engineers Association, UK, in London. She subsequently worked as Senior Manager (Research and Analysis) with Price Waterhouse, London. During this time she also briefly worked with the BBC World Service.
On her return to India, she served as Deputy Director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad. She was a member of the National Commission for Women from 2003-2005 and instrumental in voicing various issues of women’s empowerment.
As Union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has so far tabled six budgets, including the February 1 Interim Budget. She became the second finance minister to present her sixth straight budget after equaling her record with former PM Morarji Desai. Sitharaman, the first full-time woman finance minister of the country, has presented five full budgets since July 2019.
Sitharaman surpassed the records set by her predecessors, such as Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had each presented five budgets consecutively.
Under her ministership, she brought in some major changes to the Budget procedure. In 2019 for the first time she replaced the conventional budget briefcase and opted for a ‘bahi-khata’ adorned with the National Emblem to carry the speech and other documents. Lately, she has been carrying a tablet wrapped in bahi khata.
President Droupadi Murmu administered oath of office to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, followed by other members of his team of ministers.
Apart from his two terms as Prime Minister beginning in 2014, Narendra Modi also has the distinction of being the longest serving Chief Minister of Gujarat, with his term spanning from October 2001 to May 2014.
PM Modi led BJP-led NDA to third successive victory in the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP won absolute majority on its own in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, winning 282 and 303 seats, respectively.
PM Modi leads an NDA coalition with 292 seats in the Parliament and has laid thrust on making India a developed nation by 2047.
The swearing in ceremony is being attended by Nepal PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Bhutan PM Tshering Tobgay, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina and Seychelles Vice President Ahmed Afif.