Portfolios allocated in MP, Scindia loyalists get good share

Predictably, the new star of the party Jyotiraditya Scindia managed to get key departments for his supporters. The 28 new ministers who joined the Chouhan cabinet on July 2 included 20 of the cabinet rank and eight ministers of state. The strength of the ministry is now 34, including four women.

Scindia's top loyalist Tulsi Silawat retained the water resources department. The others in the camp have been handed revenue, transport, health, women and child development, industries, water resources, food and civil supplies and public health engineering.

The original BJP claimants did manage to get significant departments like Home, Finance, Urban Administration, Public Works Department, Agriculture, Cooperatives, Higher and Technical Education, Mineral Resources, and Forest. Despite this, the original claimants still have some resentment. The grassroots worker has lost out to the new poster boys, said a local leader.

Five ministers -- three of the original BJP cadre and two of the Scindia camp -- were already working, and with the addition of 28 new ministers there is now a total of 33 ministers in the state with the Chief Minister.

Chief Minister Chouhan will hold all those departments which have not been allocated so far, including general administration, public relations, civil aviation, and Narmada Valley development.

Among the existing ministers, Narottam Mishra has retained his home portfolio and additionally got the Legislative affairs, but the Health Department has been taken away from him and given to Prabhuram Choudhary of the Scindia camp. Kamal Patel has retained Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and Meena Singh gets the SC/ST welfare.

The list of ministers includes:

Narottam Mishra - Home, Jail, Parliamentary Affairs and Law.

Gopal Bhargava - Public Works, Cottage and Village Industries.

Tulsi Ram Silavat - Water Resources, Fisheries Welfare and Fisheries Development.

Vijay Shah - Forest.

Jadgish Deora - Commercial taxes, Finance, Planning Economic and Statistics.

Bisahu Lal Singh - Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection.

Yashodhara Raje Scindia - Sports and Youth Welfare, Technical Education Cell Development and Employment.

Bhupendra Singh - Urban Development and Housing.

Meena Singh Mandwe - Primitive Caste Welfare, Scheduled Caste Welfare.

Kamal Patel - Farmers Welfare and Agricultural Development.

Aidal Singh Kanshana - Public Health Engineering.

Govind Singh Rajput - Revenue, Transport.

Brijendra Pratap Singh - Mineral Resources, Labour.

Vishwas Sarang - Medical Education, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation.

Imarti Devi - Women and Child Development.

Prabhuram Chaudhary - Public Health and Family Welfare.

Mahendra Singh Sisodia - Panchayat and Rural Development.

Pradyuman Singh Tomar - Energy.

Prem Singh Patel - Animal Husbandry, Social Justice and Disabled Welfare.

Om Prakash Sakleva - Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Science and Technology.

Usha Thakur - Tourism, Culture, Spirituality.

Arvind Bhadoria - Cooperatives, Lake Service Management.

Mohan Yadav - Higher Education.

Hardeep Singh Dung - New and Renewable Energy, Environment.

Rajwardhan Singh Prem Singh Dattigaon - Industrial Policy and Investment Promotion.

Ministers of state include:

Bharat Singh Kushwah - Horticulture and Food Processing (Independent Charge), Narmada Valley Development.

Inder Singh Parmar - School Education (Independent Charge), General Administration.

Ramkhelavan Patel - Backward Class and Minority Welfare and Denotified Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Caste Welfare (Independent Charge), Panchayat and Rural Development.

Ram Kishore (Nano) Kanware - AYUSH (Independent Charge), Water Resources.

Brijendra Singh Yadav - Public Health Engineering.

Giriraj Dandotia - Farmer Welfare and Agriculture Development.

Suresh Dhakad - PWD.

OPS Bhadauria - Urban administration and Development.