Union ministers Uma Bharti, Harsimrat Kaur, Ramvilas Paswan, Gopinath Munde, Radha Mohan Singh and Harsh Vardhan after attending the first Cabinet Meeting of the NDA government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to expand his cabinet any time after June 12, when a week-long Parliament session ends, sources have said. A full-time Defence Minister is likely to be appointed then.
For now, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been given additional charge of the important Defence portfolio, in a move that surprised many and was criticised by Mr Modi's rivals. As he took charge on Tuesday, Mr Jaitley said he expected a full-time Defence Minister to be named in a "couple of weeks."
Sources said that the cabinet expansion will likely happen before the Budget Session of Parliament begins on July 2 and that Mr Modi might induct about 25 more Ministers of State. He was sworn in on Monday evening along with 45 ministers, 23 of them of cabinet rank. At that number it is one of the leanest council of ministers ever.
In his expansion exercise, the PM is expected to give more ministerial representation to Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Himachal states that the BJP swept in the general elections. There is one minister of state from Rajasthan among the current ministers and none from the other two states, the allies of the BJP.
The BJP could also hand more ministerial berths to allies. Sources said the Shiv Sena could now get more Minister of State posts in the cabinet expansion. The Sena, the BJP's biggest ally, had protested when its lone minister in the new cabinet, Anant Geete, was allotted the Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Ministry and had demanded a change in portfolio. It took a call from PM Modi to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray for the party to set aside its reservations on the issue.
Mr Modi has said he will head a lean Cabinet with a focus on "minimum government and maximum governance".