Vajpayee II cabinet

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

The Vajpayee II cabinet was formed in India on March 19, 1998 by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It replaced the Gujral cabinet and remained in office until October 13, 1999, after which it was replaced by the Vajpayee III cabinet .

From the parliamentary elections on February 16, 22, 23 and 28, and on March 7, 1998 , there was a neck and neck race between the Indian National Congress (INC), which received 25.82 percent, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to 25.59 percent. Because of the electoral law, the BJP became the strongest force and got 182 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha , while the INC had 141 seats. The main loser of the election was Janata Dal (JD) of the previous Prime Minister Gujral, who lost 40 seats and only had six members. After the election, Atal Bihar Vajpayee of the BJP formed his second cabinet, which was made up of ministers from BJP, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Samata Party (SAP), Shiromani Akali Dali (SAD), Lok Shakti (LS), the Shiv Sena (SHS) and Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress (TRC) passed.

In the parliamentary elections that followed, between September 5 and October 4, 1999 , the INC received around 16 million votes more than the BJP, but lost 27 seats because of the electoral law and only had 114 of 543 members of the Lok Sabha. Despite slight losses, the BJP still had 182 members. The third strongest force was the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)), which had 33 parliamentarians. Vajpayee then formed a new coalition government.

minister

The Cabinet consisted of the following ministers:

Office	Surname	Political party	Beginning of the term of office	Term expires
prime minister	Atal Behari Vajpayee	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister of Agriculture	Atal Behari Vajpayee	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Foreign minister	Atal Behari Vajpayee Jaswant Singh	BJP BJP	March 19, 1998 December 5, 1998	December 5, 1998 October 13, 1999
Interior minister	Lal Krishna Advani	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Industry Minister	Sikander Bakht	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers	Surjit Singh Barnala	SAD	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Law, Justice and Corporate Affairs	M. Thambidurai Rangarajan Kumaramangalam Ram Jethmalani	AIADMK BJP BJP	March 19, 1998 April 5, 1999 June 8, 1999	April 5, 1999 June 8, 1999 October 13, 1999
Defense Minister	George Fernandes	SAP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister of Commerce	Ramakrishna Hegde	LS	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister of Labor	Satyanarayan JatiyaBakht	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Urban Development	Ram Jethmalani Jagmohan	Non-party BJP	March 19, 1998 June 8, 1999	June 8, 1999 October 13, 1999
Minister for Human Resource Development	Murli Manohar JoshiBakht	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs	Madan Lal Khurana	BJP	March 19, 1998	January 31, 1999
Energy minister	Rangarajan Kumaramangalam	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Railway Minister	Nitish Kumar	SAP	March 19, 1998	August 3, 1999
Minister for Civil Aviation	Ananth Kumar	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Steel and Mining	Naveen Patnaik	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Environment and Forests	Suresh Prabhu	SHS	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas	Vazhappady K. Ramamurthy	TRC	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Textiles	Kashiram Rana	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Communications minister	Buta Singh Jagmohan Atal Bihari Vajpayee	Non-party BJP BJP	March 19, 1998 December 5, 1998 June 8, 1999	April 20, 1998 June 8, 1999 October 13, 1999
Finance minister	Yashwant Sinha	BJP	March 19, 1998	October 13, 1999
Minister for Information and Broadcasting	Sushma Swaraj Pramod Mahajan	BJP BJP	March 19, 1998 December 5, 1998	December 5, 1998 October 13, 1999
Transport Minister	Sedapatti Muthiah M. Thambidurai Nitish Kumar Jaswant Singh	AIADMK AIADMK SAP BJP	March 19, 1998 April 8, 1998 April 5, 1999 June 8, 1999	April 8, 1998 April 5, 1999 June 8, 1999 October 13, 1999

Web links

• All Members of Lok Sabha (Since 1952): Members Biographical Sketches on the Lok Sabha homepage
• RAJYA SABHA MEMBERS: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 1952 - 2003 on the homepage of Rajya Sabha
• COUNCIL OF MINISTER VAJPAYEE 19.3.1998 - 13.10.1999
• Gopa Sabharwal: India Since 1947: The Independent Years , Penguin UK, 2007, ISBN 9-35214-089-3
• India: Key Ministers (rulers.org)