Bhupender Yadav again MoEFCC in-charge; C R Patil gets Jal Shakti while Annapurna Devi gets women & child development
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, is India’s new Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. It is one of the few major leadership changes for environmentally important central ministries in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s newly formed Cabinet.
Chouhan, the longest serving chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, has also been given charge of the rural development ministry, it emerged on June 10 evening as details of portfolio allocation became known.
Narendra Modi and his Cabinet of Ministers had taken oath in a ceremony attended by world leaders and national celebrities in New Delhi on June 9 evening.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), had staked claim to form the government after the NDA bagged 293 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Parliament of India, in the results declared on June 4.
Chouhan is a seasoned politician who served as MP chief minister from 2005-2018 and then from 2020-2023.
Last December, the BJP won the state assembly elections in large part due to the landmark social welfare scheme called Laadli Behna (‘Beloved Sister’ in Hindi), which Chouhan had championed. However, Mohan Yadav was appointed as the new chief minister instead of Chouhan.
He won the Vidisha constituency during the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls defeating Congress candidate and ex-MP Pratap Bhanu Sharma by a margin of 8,21,408 votes.
The other big change is Jagat Prakash Nadda. The BJP president has been given charge of two key ministries: Health and Chemicals & Fertilisers.
Nadda was Minister for Health and Family Welfare in the first Cabinet of PM Modi from 2014-2019, before being replaced in Modi 2.0 by Harsh Vardhan and later by Mansukh Mandaviya.
Meanwhile, Mandaviya has been made Minister of Labour and Employment as well as Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports.
The charge of the ministry of tribal affairs (MoTA) in Modi 3.0 has been given to Jual Oram. A member of the Oraon Scheduled Tribe, Oram hails from Odisha’s northern Sundargarh district.
He was the first-ever Minister for Tribal Affairs under the late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who led the first NDA government from 1999-2004. MoTA was first formed under Vajpayee.
Oram returned as MoTA’s in-charge in Modi 1.0 from 2014-2019. The ministry was led by Arjun Munda in Modi 2.0. Munda, however, lost the Khunti seat in Jharkhand in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to Congress’ candidate Kalicharan Munda.
On the other hand, Oram defeated former Indian hockey captain Dilip Tirkey of the Biju Janata Dal by over 0.138 million votes from Sundargarh.
Meanwhile, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh of BJP ally, Janata Dal (United), has been made Minister of Panchayati Raj and Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
The latter portfolio was held during Modi 2.0 by Parshottam Rupala, whose remarks regarding the Rajput community created a political firestorm. As a result, Rupala is not part of Modi 3.0.
Annapurna Devi has been made the Minister for Women and Child Development, a ministry earlier held by Smriti Irani who lost in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to Kishori Lal Sharma.
Jitendra Singh has been made Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences. Bhupender Yadav will reprise his role as Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in Modi 3.0.
Hardeep Singh Puri is Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas; G Kishan Reddy the Minister of Coal and Mines; Chirag Paswan is the Minister of Food Processing Industries while CR Patil is the Minister of Jal Shakti (water resources).
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