Modi 3.0 Cabinet : Major ministries unchanged, boost for allies, regional balance

NEW DELHI : Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s cabinet in his historic third term will retain the known faces in the big four ministries – Shri Amit Shah will retain the Home Minister portfolio, Shri Rajnath Singh Defence, Foreign ministry will be retained by Shri S Jaishankar and the Finance ministry by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. The Prime Minister himself will handle the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space.

Many of the ministers have been retained with their last jobs in the interest of continuity as well. Among them is Shri Nitin Gadkari, who will retain the Road Transport and Highways ministry with two juniors under him — Shri Ajay Tamta and Shri Harsh Malhotra. The 67-year-old has been the longest serving minister in the department and has been credited with the building of construction of more than 54,858 km of national highways over the last 10 years.

Shri Piyush Goyal has retained the Commerce portfolio.

The plum portfolios of I&B and railways will be handled by Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw. The Civil Aviation Ministry has changed hands from Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia to TDP’s Shri Ram Mohan Naidu, the youngest minister in the cabinet. Mr Scindia has been put in charge of the Telecom Ministry.

Two former Chief Ministers from the key BJP states of Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, who have been brought to the Centre, have been allocated significant responsibility. Shri Manohar Lal Khattar will handle two key ministries — Power and Housing and Urban Affairs. For the first, he would have the assistance of junior minister Shri Shripad Naik, for the second, Tokhan Sahu, the first-time minister from Chhattisgarh.

Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the four-time Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, will handle the key ministry of Agriculture, and the related Farmers Welfare and Rural Development ministries.

Shri Mansukh Mandavia has been put in charge of Labour and Employment.

Ravneet Singh Bittu — the grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh who was assassinated in 1995 — will be the junior minster for food processing and railways. Mr Bittu has lost the election from Ludhiana and will have to get a seat in either house of parliament within the next six months.

Among allies — who are now crucial to the survival of the government —  Lallan Singh of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United got the Panchayati Raj ministry. The other minister from JD(U), Ram Nath Thakur — son of Karpoori Thakur, who recently got a posthumous Bharat Ratna — is now the junior minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.

TDP’s Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani — the richest candidate in this election — was made the junior minister for Rural Development and Communications ministries.

Former Bihar Chief Minister and HAM chief Jitan Ram Manjhi was given charge of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises with Shobha Karandlaje as the Minister of State.Key Bihar ally and LJP chief Chirag Paswan has been given charge of the Food Processing department.

South ally and Janata Dal Secular chief HD Kumaraswamy has been put in charge of the Heavy Industries and Steel portfolios.

Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary is now a junior minister with independent charge for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.