New Delhi, May 27: BJP heavyweight Rajnath Singh was today appointed Home Minister and another senior party leader Sushma Swaraj the External Affairs minister in the new government in which Arun Jaitley gets Finance Ministry with additional charge of Defence.
Expanding the experiment, Modi also brought back Corporate Affairs to Finance headed by Jaitley.
He has also merged Overseas Affairs Ministry with External Affairs and Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation which has been given to another BJP veteran Venkaiah Naidu.
Significantly, first time MP Jitendra Singh, who was elected on a BJP ticket from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir, has been made Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office as also of Department of Personnel, which has an administrative control over the CBI.
The Prime Minister will also be the Cabinet Minister of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space.
He will also look after "all important policy issues" and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister, said an official communique of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
As part of the experiment of restructuring the ministries, Piyush Goel, close confident of Modi, was made Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy portfolios.
The big four -- Finance, External Affairs, Defence and Home -- constituting the key Cabinet Committee on Security, remain with BJP along with other important portfolios like Railways and Agriculture.
Members of NDA allies--Anant Geethe of Shiv Sena gets Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Ashok Gajapathi Raju of TDP gets Civil Aviation, Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP gets Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Harsimrat Kaur Badal of SAD gets Food Processing Industry.
The star of BJP's victory in Delhi Harsh Vardhan was given the Health Ministry while BJP leader Smriti Zubin Irani will look after Human Resources Development.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda was given the important portfolio of Railways in his ministerial debut at the Centre.
Ravi Shankar Prasad was alloted the key portfolio of Communication and Information and Technology besides being made the Law Minister.
Uma Bharti, a cabinet minister, has been given the charge of newly created River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation besides being made the Water Resources Minister.
Najma A Heptulla, lone Muslim face in the Modi cabinet, was made Minister for Minority Affairs while Maharashtara heavyweight Gopinathrao Munde was given the charge of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation.
BJP veteran from Uttar Pradesh Kalraj Mishra was made Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and another senior leader from Karanatka Ananthkumar will look after Chemicals and Fertilizers portfolio.
Animal-rights activist Maneka Gandhi was given charge of Women and Child Development.
Jual Oram, a firebrand tribal leader who created history by becoming India's first Tribal Affairs Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, will have the same portfolio in the new government as well.
Five-time MP, Radha Mohan Singh, who was part of Jana Sangh, has got the key charge of Agriculture Ministry while Madhya Pradesh BJP chief Narendra Singh Tomar was made incharge of restructured Mines and Steel and Labour and Employment ministries.
Thaawar Chand Gehlot, BJP face for Scheduled Castes in Madhya Pradesh, has been given the charge of Social justice and Empowerment.
Former Army chief Gen (retd) V K Singh was made Minister of State with Independent Charge for Development of North Eastern Region. He will also be a junior minister in External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs ministries.
Inderjit Singh Rao, who won from Gurgaon, was given Independent Charge of Planning, Statistics and Programme Implementation besides being made Minister of State in Defence Ministry as well.
Rajya Sabha MP Dharmendra Pradhan, who led BJP to stunning victory in Bihar, was made Minister of State with Independent Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas.
BJP's face on television Prakash Javadekar was given charge of Information and Broadcasting, Environment, Forest and Climate Change with Independent Charge besides being made Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.
Nirmala Sitharaman, another articulate BJP spokesperson, has been given Commerce and Industry Ministry with Independent Charge besides being made Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs.
Santosh Gangwar, who was the chief whip of BJP in 14th Lok Sabha, was given Independent Charge of Textiles besides being made Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Shripad Yesso Naik, a four-time MP from North Goa, has been asked to look after restructured Culture and Tourism Ministries as Minister of State with Independent charge. He was also a Minister of State in Vajpayee government and held Agriculture, Shipping, Civil Aviation and Finance portfolios between 2000 and 2004.
Jitendra Singh, who has surprised everyone by being appointed as Minister of State in the PMO and DoPT, will also be look after Science and Technology, Earth Science with Independent Charge.
A physician by profession, Singh, who joined BJP in 2009 and is a member of the party's National Executive Committee, will also be Minister of State for Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space.
Sarbananda Sonowal, a BJP leader from Assam, has been given the charge of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent Charge).
Former Karnataka state BJP Vice President G M Siddeshwara has been made Minister of State for Civil Aviation. Known as an influential Lingayat leader from the state, he has been elected to Lok Sabha for the third time from Davangere constituency since 2004.
Ghazipur MP Manoj Sinha has been made Minister of State for Railways. A former President of the Banaras Hindu University Students Union, Sinha is a B.Tech in civil engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi.
Ganganagar MP Nihalchand, the lone face from Rajasthan, is Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers.
Founder of Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, an ally of BJP in Bihar, Updendra Kushwaha has been made Minister of State for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation departments.
Elected from Kanyakumari, Radhakrishnan P has been made Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises. He had served as a Minister of state in the Vajpayee government.
Kiren Rijiju, BJP MP from Arunachal Pradesh, has been made Minister of State for Home. He was elected from Arunachal West constituency defeating Takam Sanjoy of Congress.
BJP MP from Faridabad, Haryana Krishan Pal Gurjar is the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping.
Controversial Muzzafarnagar BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan, an accused in the riots which took place last year, has been made Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries.
BJP MP from Bharuch in Gujarat has been made Minister of State for Tribal Affairs. He was elected in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 from the same constituency.
Four-term MP Raosaheb Dadarao Danve has been given the portfolio of Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
Senior tribal leader and Chhattisgarh unit President Vishnu Deo Sai, who is credited for bagging 10 seats for BJP in the state, has been made Minister of State for Mines, Steel, Labour and Employment.
MP from Lohardaga in Jharkhand Sudarshan Bhagat has been made Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment.
Comments
Add new comment