Indian PM Modi names Cabinet for coalition government after his party lost majority

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Narendra Modi, newly sworn in for a third straight term, named a Cabinet on Monday that retained his top ministers in crucial portfolios despite his Hindu nationalist party losing their majority in a shock election result.

There was no change in the top four ministries. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who spearheaded the country’s foreign policy for the last five years, was handed back his position as the External Affairs Minister. Amit Shah will continue as India’s Home Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman will remain as the Finance Minister and Rajnath Singh will continue to be Defense Minister.

India’s six-week-long election came to an end last week, in which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party failed to secure a majority on its own after it won landslide victories in 2014 and 2019. However, his National Democratic Alliance coalition won enough seats to form the government, with him at the helm.

This is the first time the BJP under Modi has needed support from its regional allies to form a government after a decade of commanding the majority in India’s parliament.

Final election results showed Modi’s BJP won 240 seats, well below the 272 needed for a majority. Together, the parties in the NDA coalition secured 293 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament.

Modi, 73, is only the second Indian prime minister to win a third straight term.

On Sunday, he and 71 ministers took the oath of office at India’s presidential palace, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi. 61 of them were from the BJP while the remaining were BJP’s NDA allies. Only seven of them were women, and not a single one from the Muslim community, the largest minority group in India whose political representation as lawmakers has shrunk under Modi.