New Delhi: Bureaucrat turned politician Ashwini Vaishnaw became one of the strongest Cabinet Ministers in the country as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has allocated him three important portfolios.
Shri Vaishnaw has been allowed to continue in his previous Ministries of Railways and Electronics & Information Technology. In place of the Ministry of Communication, the PM has given him another important portfolio—Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Shri Vaishnaw, a Rajya Sabha member from Odisha, has been elected to the Upper House of the Parliament from Odisha twice in 2019 and February this year, with active support from BJD.
In July 2021 after Shri Vaishnaw was inducted into the union cabinet and given heavyweight portfolios like Railways, Communications and Electronics & IT.
He very smoothly handled both the ministries effectively and earned praise from the Prime Minister at many occasions.
Similarly, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will continue in his Ministry of Education while Sundargarh MP Jual Oram has been given Tribal Affairs Ministry.
Shri Pradhan, who was inducted in the Union Cabinet for the third time on Sunday, has returned to the Lok Sabha after 15 years, after he won from Sambalpur MP seat defeating the BJD’s Pranab Prakash Das by a substantial margin of over 1.19 lakh votes.
He was tasked with the implementation of the ambitious new National Education Policy (NEP) in his previous tenure as the education and skill development minister.
Shri Pradhan is credited with being the longest-serving Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Jual Oram is the first Tribal Affairs Minister of India under the regime of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He has already served in the same Ministry during 2014 to 2019 under Narendra Modi government’s first tenure.
Though he was removed from the Ministry from 2019 to 2024, Modi again allocated him the same portfolio for his work and no allegation leveled against him, sources said.