NEW DELHI: Manohar Parrikar was Sunday inducted as India’s new Defence minister while North Goa MP Shripad Naik was divested off the Culture and Tourism portfolios and was given Aayush (Independent Charge) besides Health and Family Welfare.
Suresh Prabhu will be the railway minister in the expansion-cum-reshuffle of the Narendra Modi ministry after 21 new ministers were sworn-in today.
Parrikar, who quit as Goa chief minister yesterday to join the Union cabinet, takes over the charge from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who held the defence portfolio as an additional charge. Interestingly, Jaitley has been given the additional charge of Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
J P Nadda, who also joined the Union cabinet, gets the portfolio of health and family welfare portfolio, held by Harsh Vardhan who has been shifted to the Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Ministry.
Haryana leader Birender Singh, who had quit the Congress recently, is the new minister for rural development, Panchayati Raj and drinking water and sanitation, a charge held by Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari till now after the demise of Gopinath Munde.
D V Sadananda Gowda, who has been shifted from the Railways Ministry, has been made the law and justice minister, relieving Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from the charge.
Rajiv Pratap Rudy is the new minister of state (independent charge) of skill development & entrepreneurship. He also gets the charge of parliamentary affairs as MoS alongwith Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is also MoS for minority affairs with Najma Heptulla retained as the cabinet minister.
Bandaru Dattatreya is the new minister of state (independent charge) for labour and employment while Mahesh Sharma gets the charge of tourism as MoS (IC).
This is the first expansion of his ministry by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he assumed power in May.
Earlier, Parrikar and former Shiv Sainik Suresh Prabhu were inducted into the Union cabinet as Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought in 21 new faces into his council of ministers but Shiv Sena stuck a jarring note holding back a senior leader from joining the government.
Senior BJP leader J P Nadda and Jat leader from Haryana Birender Singh, who joined BJP ahead of recent assembly elections also took oath as cabinet ministers.
Bandaru Dattatreya and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who were ministers in Vajpayee government, and Mahesh Sharma, newly-elected MP from Gautam Buddh Nagar bordering Delhi, were sworn-in as ministers of state with independent charge.
14 other ministers of State were sworn-in. They are Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Ram Kripal Yadav, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, Sanwar Lal Jat and Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya Giriraj Singh, Hansraj Ahir, Ram Shankar Katheria, Jayant Sinha, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Babul Supriyo, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Vijay Sampla (all BJP) and Y S Chowdary, a Rajya Sabha member from TDP.
Significantly, Naqvi, BJP vice president and a minister in the Vajpayee government, was only made a minister of state, and Rudy became MoS with independent charge but eyebrows went up when Mahesh Sharma, a first time member of Lok Sabha, was made minister of state with independent charge. Ahir was rewarded for his relentless campaign as a whistle-blower in the coal block allocation scam. Among those rewarded with ministerial berths were Giriraj Singh, Lok Sabha member from Bihar who had made a controversial statement that the place for those who do not like Modi is in Pakistan and Ram Kripal Yadav, a former RJD leader, who defeated Lalu Prasad’s daughter in Patliputra on BJP ticket.
The induction of Rudy, who defeated Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi in Saran, Giriraj Singh and Yadav is seen as an attempt to woo various caste groups in Bihar which will go to assembly polls next year.
