Cabinet reshuffle: Oath taking ceremony ends, PM Modi leaves for BRIC summit
Apparently, Amit Shah has kept whole of of rejig process very secretive and all he was the only point of contact for the all ministers and not the Prime Minister.
By : migrator
Update: 2017-09-03 07:31 GMT
Chennai
The new ministers and those elevated to the cabinet were sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The new Cabinet ministers are Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
The new Ministers of State are former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (MP), former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satya Pal Singh (MP), former bureaucrat Alphons Kannanthanam as well as Ashwini Choubey, Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Anant Kumar Hegde and Raj Kumar Singh (all MPs).
The PM had meeting with the nine new entrant ministers prior to the swearing in ceremony. Interesting fact is that four out of them are already eminent former bureaucrats who have served for the nation.
The reason for such move is speculated to be the upcoming 2019 election where the BJP is pitching in to make the most experienced minsters as the party's face to have hands down victory.
Further, it is speculated that BJP has roped in minsters from all the states where it wants a clear win, for example the state of Karnataka.
The talk of Arun Jaitley to lose the Defence portfolio that surfaced is still on the hold as that would be clear only when the portfolios are disclosed later during the day or probably tomorrow. So the question of whether Suresh Prabhu will be assigned that portfolio remains as the biggest question.
Apparently, Amit Shah had kept whole of rejig process very secretive and he was the only point of contact for the all ministers and not the Prime Minister.
Discussion is that, PM Modi had been handling the whole the process of assigning portfolios to his team of ministers through their performance report cards.
Edited and compiled by Vandhana Srinivasan
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