(Bloomberg) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi elevated four junior ministers to cabinet rank and inducted an additional nine to his council of ministers as part of efforts to accelerate policy implementation before national polls in 2019.
Junior ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were promoted to become cabinet ministers. Former Home Secretary R.K. Singh, former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri and former bureaucrats Alphons Kannanthanam and Satya Pal Singh were inducted as junior ministers.
Shiv Pratap Shukla, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Virendra Kumar, A. Hegde, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat were also sworn in as junior ministers Sunday by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony in the colonial-era president's palace in central New Delhi.
Modi is seeking to quicken policy implementation to create jobs, ease rural distress, boost trade and rejuvenate slowing growth to ensure victory in the next national elections due in 2019. The economy recorded its slowest quarterly pace of growth in the April to June period since Modi came to power in 2014, making it harder for the government to create enough jobs for farmers fleeing plunging agricultural prices, and the failures are stoking existing caste-based tensions.
Portfolios of ministers are likely to be announced later Sunday. Before the cabinet expansion six ministers had tendered their resignations.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ameya Karve in Mumbai at akarve@bloomberg.net, Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Ameya Karve, Nicholas Reynolds
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