On Sunday, June 9, a total of 72 ministers took oaths alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, forming the new cabinet in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Notably, among these ministers, 11 are law graduates.
However, the Ministry of Law and Justice does not have a cabinet minister, with Arjun Ram Meghwal continuing as a Minister of State with independent charge of the Ministry.
The 11 ministers with law degrees are:
1. Piyush Goyal: Minister of Commerce and Industry (BJP, Maharashtra)
2. Nitin Jairam Gadkari: Minister of Road Transport and Highways (BJP, Maharashtra)
3. Jagat Prakash Nadda: Minister of Health and Family Welfare; and Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers (BJP, Himachal Pradesh)
4. Kiren Rijiju: Minister of Parliamentary Affairs; and Minister of Minority Affairs (BJP, Arunachal Pradesh)
5. Arjun Ram Meghwal: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Law and Justice; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (BJP, Rajasthan)
6. Bhupender Yadav: Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (BJP, Rajasthan)
7. Rao Inderjit Singh: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Planning; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture (BJP, Haryana)
8. Krishan Pal Gurjar: Minister of State in the Ministry of Cooperation (BJP, Haryana)
9. George Kurian: Minister of State in the Ministry of Minority Affairs; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying (BJP, Kerala)
10. Dr. L. Murugan: Minister of State in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (BJP, Tamil Nadu)
11. Sarbananda Sonowal: Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (BJP, Assam)
Interestingly, former Calcutta High Court Judge, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay won the 2024 Lok Sabha polls from the Tamluk constituency in West Bengal on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. He defeated TMC candidate Debangshu Bhattacharya by a margin of 77,733 votes.
61-year-old Gangopadhyay resigned from service in March, five months before retirement, and joined the BJP. It was Gangopadhyay who ordered a series of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probes into the multi-crore recruitment scam. As per the ECI, Gangopadhyay secured 7,65,584 votes, while Bhattacharya managed 6,87,851 votes, marking a significant victory for the BJP in the Tamluk constituency, which has traditionally been a stronghold of the TMC.
Additionally, Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union minister, Senior Advocate Ravi Shankar Prasad has also won against Congress candidate Anshul Avijit, from Bihar’s Patna Sahib constituency by a margin of 1,53,846 votes, the Election Commission of India (ECI) website reported. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he had defeated actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha who was then associated with the Congress party. The BJP leader had secured a whopping vote share of 61.85%, while Sinha received 28.98%.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, out of 133 law graduates who contested, 53 were successful. Of these, 43 were from the BJP and 10 from the Congress. Notable winners included incumbent Law Minister and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, former Law Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, and rookie candidate Tejasvi Surya. Meenakshi Lekhi won the New Delhi seat, and Nitin Gadkari represented Nagpur in the Lok Sabha.