After the expansion in the Modi cabinet on 7 July , 7 more women have been given ministerial posts. Since then, the number of women ministers in Prime Minister Modi’s cabinet has increased to 11. Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Renuka Singh are already ministers in the Modi government. Let us know who has got what department and what has been their political history?
Except Anupriya Patel, all 6 leaders have become ministers for the first time. Apart from these seven women ministers, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, Minister of State Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Renuka Singh Saruta are already included in the Council of Ministers.
Let us know who has been given what responsibility and which portfolio i.e. ministry has been received.
Meenakshi Lekhi
Meenakshi Lekhi, a Lok Sabha MP from Delhi, has been made Minister of State for External Affairs. Along with this, he has also been given the responsibility as Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture. This is the first time that Meenakshi Lekhi has become a minister in the central government.
Meenakshi Lekhi was first fielded from the New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in 2014, defeating Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Ashish Khaitan. For the second time in the year 2019, he reached the Lok Sabha by defeating former Union Minister and Congress leader Ajay Maken from the New Delhi parliamentary constituency. Meenakshi Lekhi is also a lawyer.
Pratima Bhowmik
Pratima Bhowmik took oath as a Union Minister on Wednesday. She is the first leader of Tripura who has become a Union Minister. 52-year-old Bhowmik’s popular name is ‘Pratima Di’. Pratima Bhowmik has become the Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
Bhowmik has become an MP for the first time in 2019 from the West Tripura Lok Sabha constituency. Prior to this she was the general secretary of the Tripura unit of the BJP.
Darshana Zardosh
Darshana Jardosh, a three-time MP from Gujarat, has been included in the Union Council of Ministers. 60-year-old Jardosh comes from OBC society and has been made Minister of State for Railways. Along with this, he has also been given the responsibility as Minister of State in the Ministry of Textiles.
Darshana Jardosh has won the Lok Sabha elections from Surat thrice in the years 2009, 2014 and 2019. Jardosh was the vice-president of Surat BJP’s ward number eight committee in the 1980s and was later elected councilor from this ward in 2000. After this, she was made the president of the women’s unit of Surat BJP and again made the general secretary of the state BJP’s women’s wing till 2008.
Annapurna Devi
Annapurna Devi, MP from Koderma, Jharkhand, has been made a minister in the Narendra Modi government. She has been made Minister of State for Education at the Centre. Annapurna Devi is also the National Vice President of BJP. Earlier she was in RJD, but in the year 2019, before the Lok Sabha elections, she joined BJP.
MP Annapurna is the wife of Ramesh Prasad Yadav. Ramesh Yadav had been a minister of unified Bihar in 1998, but after the death of Ramesh Prasad Yadav, Annapurna Devi contested the assembly by-election in 1999 and became an MLA for the first time. A year later, Annapurna won again in the assembly elections. After which he was made a minister in the Bihar government.
After the formation of a separate state of Jharkhand, Annapurna Devi won the assembly elections in 2005 and 2009. In the year 2013, Hemant Soren became the Minister of Water Resources from the quota of RJD in the government. However, a year later, in the year 2014, he had to face defeat in the assembly elections from Koderma itself.
Anupriya Patel
Anupriya Patel, MP from Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, has returned to the Modi cabinet. Anupriya Anupriya of Apna Dal was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and again in 2019 from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. Anupriya was Minister of State in the Union Health Ministry from 2016 to 2019. This time he has been entrusted with the responsibility of the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.
She was previously elected as a member of the UP Legislative Assembly for the Rohaniya constituency in Varanasi, where she contested a campaign in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections in alliance with the Peace Party of India and Bundelkhand Congress.
Anupriya, who holds a Masters degree in Psychology and a Master of Business Administration (MBA), has been the President of Apna Dal since her father’s death in 2009. Apna Dal is an important ally of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and enjoys great support among Kurmis in the state.
Shobha Karandlje
54-year-old Shobha Karandlaje is an MP from Udupi-Chikmagalur in Karnataka. Karandlje has been made the new Minister of State for Agriculture. She has also been a cabinet minister in the Karnataka government. Karandlaje is considered close to Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa since its early days.
She became an MLA for the first time by winning from Yeshwantpur in Bangalore in the 2004 assembly elections. He was made the Minister of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj in the Yeddyurappa government. Karandlaje had also resigned after Yeddyurappa parted ways with the BJP. However, later Yediyurappa again joined the BJP, and Karandlaje also returned to the BJP.
Karandlje has also been in controversies due to his comments. He has also been accused of disturbing religious harmony.
Bharti Pawar
Dr. Bharti Pawar, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Dhindori, Maharashtra, has been entrusted with the responsibility of the Union Minister of State for Health. She was declared the best female parliamentarian in December 2019. Bharti, a doctor-turned-politician, completed her MBBS degree in 2002 from NDMVP’s Medical College, Pune University.
There is a lot of applause for the inclusion of 7 women ministers in the cabinet, but the truth is that according to the total number of ministers, even today only 14 percent women are in the cabinet. UP has got more representation than this. What portfolios they have got should also be considered. One should also remember to withdraw the Ministry of Textiles from Smriti Irani.
