Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 52-year-old Thakur, a five-time MLA from Seraj, and other ministers which included six new faces.
The outgoing BJP government had 12 cabinet ministers, including Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday named its candidates for assembly bypolls in several states, fielding six disqualified MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh assembly in the state days after they joined the party after leaving the Congress.
Sharma said Jai Ram Thakur's sarcastic comments forced him to resign from the ministry, saying it indicated that the chief minister had lost faith in him.
The Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly while the BJP got 25 seats.
If the BJP doesn't do something quickly, Anurag Thakur and P K Dhumal will be the ones having a quiet last laugh.
