Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday night allocated portfolios to the members of the new Union Council of Ministers, with drastic changes.
However, he made no changes in the portfolios of the eight top Cabinet ministers; rather, he gave the new responsibility of the cooperation ministry to Home Minister Amit Shah.
Jyotiraditya Scindia gets Civil Aviation, a portfolio that was once handled by his father. Scindia has relieved the additional charge held by Hardeep Singh Puri.
Those who retained their portfolios, while transferring the additional responsibilities to others, are Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affair Minister S Jaishankar, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda and Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani.
Anurag Thakur, who was promoted in the reshuffle, continues to be the sports and youth affairs minister and also becomes the minister of Information & Broadcasting.
Railway Ministry has been taken away from Piyush Goyal, who will be now Minister of Commerce and Industry, besides getting Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and the Textile Ministry which was hitherto with Irani.
Ashwini Vaishnaw is the new railway minister, who has been also given the portfolios of communications and electronics and information technology that were with Prasad, while Kiran Rijiju is the new law and justice minister in place of Prasad.
Mansukh Mandaviya has been given charge of the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. This is being done because pharmaceuticals and other drugs are essential in the health domain and it made eminent sense to have the same minister handle both the portfolios, said government sources.
Hardip Singh Puri retains housing and urban affairs and also gets petroleum and Natural Gas, which were earlier with Dharmendra Pradhan.
Bhupender Ydav, who was expected to be the law minister, gets the environment ministry of Javadekar and labour ministry of ousted Santosh Gangwar.
Gajendra Singh Shkhawat retains Jal Shakti Ministry while Raj Kumar Singh will be the cabinet minister for power and new and renewable energy he handled as an MoS.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been given the ministries of education and Skill Development that fell vacant after the resignation of Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank.'
Pralhad Joshi retains the ministry of mines, besides being minister of coal and parliamentary affairs.
Narayan Tatu Rane becomes Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, which was hitherto with Gadkari, while Sarbananda Sonowal has been made Minister of Ayush and Ports, shipping and waterways that were with Goa's Shripad Nayak and Mansukh Mandaviya as independent charge as MoS.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi retains the minority affairs ministry while Dr Virendra Kumar becomes the minister of social justice and empowerment, the post hitherto held by Thawarchand Gehlot, who has become Karnataka governor.
Giriraj Singh is minister of rural development and panchayati raj, Ramchndra Prasad Singh minister of steel. Some other portfolios of the cabinet ministers are: Parshottam Rupala fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey heavy industries, G Kishan Reddy culture, tourism and north east region.
