Modi bid to infuse energy

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday reshuffled his Cabinet, changing the portfolios of key ministers after inducting 19 new faces earlier in the day.

Prakash Javadekar, who was elevated to Cabinet rank, was given the Human Resource Development ministry, earlier led by Smriti Irani. Irani was shifted to the textiles ministry.

Highlights:

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• Inducts 17 new faces into Council of Ministers
• Javadekar replaces Smriti as new HRD minister

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley shed the Information and Broadcasting portfolio, which will be handled by M Venkaiah Naidu in addition to Urban Development. Naidu’s portfolio of Parliamentary Affairs has now been shifted to Anant Kumar.

D V Sadananda Gowda was shifted from the Law ministry to Statistics and Programme Implementation. Information Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has got additional charge of the ministry.

The second exercise by the Prime Minister Narendra in little more than two years since he took over in May 2014 saw a number a Dalit and OBC leaders being given ministerial positions done apparently with an eye on Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand next year and Gujarat later.

Official sources said the exercise was aimed at infusing more "experience, expertise and energy" into the government.

Earlier, there was speculation that Power Minister Piyush Goel and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be elevated to the Cabinet. Ajay Tamta (Uttarakhand), Arjun Ram Meghwal (Rajasthan), Krishna Raj (UP), Athawale (Maharashtra),

Ramesh C Jigajinagi (Karnataka) were among the Dalit MPs administered the oath of Office and Secrecy by President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan attended by Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Modi, his Cabinet colleagues, BJP president Amit Shah and leaders of allied parties among others. No Congress leader was present.

Others who were inducted included P P Chaudhary, C R Chaudhary (Rajasthan), A M Dave, Faggan Singh Kulaste (Madhya Pradesh), Mahendra Nath Pandey (UP), Purshotam Rupala, J Bhabhor and Mansukhbhai Mandaviya (Gujarat), Rajen Gohain (Assam) and S R Bhamre (Maharashtra).

Akbar was elected recently to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh while Goel represents Rajasthan in the Upper House. Ahluwalia was elected to the Lok Sabha from Darjeeling while Anupriya Patel was elected from Mirzapur in UP.

All barring Goel and Faggan Kulaste are new faces while a few have been ministers in BJP-ruled state governments. Those dropped from the ministry are Nihalchand, Ram Shankar Katheria, Sanwar Lal Jat, Manuskhbhai D Vasava and M K Kundariya.

After the dropping of five ministers, the expansion took the total strength of the Council of Ministers to 78, four below the Constitutional bar of 82. The Council of Ministers can have a maximum of 15 per cent of the total strength of the Lok Sabha, which has 542 members.

Cabinet Ministers	Portfolios
Rajnath Singh	Home Affairs
Sushma Swaraj	External Affairs
Arun Jaitley	Finance and Corporate Affairs
M Venkaiah Naidu	Urban Development, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Information & Broadcasting
Nitin Jairam Gadkari	Road Transport and Highways Shipping
Manohar Parrikar	Defence
Suresh Prabhu	Railways
D. V. Sadananda Gowda	Statistics & Programme Implementation
Uma Bharati	Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation
Dr. Najma A. Heptulla	Minority Affairs
Ramvilas Paswan	Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution
Kalraj Mishra	Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi	Women & Child Development
Ananthkumar	Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals & Fertilisers
Ravi Shankar Prasad	Law & Justice Electronics & Information Technology
Jagat Prakash Nadda	Health & Family Welfare
Ashok Gajapathi Raju	Pusapati Civil Aviation
Anant Geete	Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises
Harsimrat Kaur Badal	Food Processing Industries
Narendra Singh Tomar	Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water & Sanitation
Chaudhary Birender Singh	Steel
Jual Oram	Tribal Affairs
Radha Mohan Singh	Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Thaawar Chand Gehlot	Social Justice and Empowerment
Smriti Zubin Irani	Textiles
Dr Harsh Vardhan	Science & Technology, Earth Sciences
Prakash Javadekar	Human Resource Development

Source: Agencies