Modi rejigs team, Sitharaman gets Def, Goyal Railways

NEW DELHI: Nirmala Sitharaman will be the country's new Defence Minister while Piyush Goyal will be the new Railways Minister after a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday that saw nine new ministers take the oath. Sitharaman and Goyal too took oath after being promoted to cabinet rank along with Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Nirmala Sitharaman will be the first woman Defence Minister after Indira Gandhi, who held the department for a brief spell when she was Prime Minister.

Dharmendra Pradhan, now a cabinet minister, will continue to have charge of Petroleum and Natural Gas and will also be minister for skill development and entrepreneurship, which Rajiv Pratap Rudy gave up two days ago.

Nitin Gadkari retains his earlier portfolio along with the additional responsibility of Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation.

Suresh Prabhu has been shifted to Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Santosh Kumar Gangwar has been promoted as the MoS (I/C) of Labour and Employment. Giriraj Singh is now the MoS (I/C) of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Among the new entrants as Ministers of State, former Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh has been given Independent charge of Power and Renewable Energy. Former IFS officer Hardeep Singh Puri has been given Independent charge of the Ministry of Urban Development. Alphons Kannanthanam has been given independent charge of Tourism and Electronics and IT ministry.

Puri is said to have the backing of Finance minister Arun Jaitley for the infrastructure department. Puri, a former high-ranking diplomat who was briefly National Security Advisor to Manmohan Singh, had hoped for the same profile when Modi became PM in 2014. However, he, was pipped to the post by Ajit Doval, an RSS favourite.

Meanwhile, Alphons hopes to be used to network with the Church in Kerala, the state he comes from.

Satya Pal Singh the Lok Sabha MP from Baghpat and former Mumbai police commissioner has been appointed MoS in the Human Resource Development and Water Resources ministries.

P Radhakrishnan and newly inducted Shiv Pratap Shukla will be the two ministers of state in the Arun Jaitley-led Finance Ministry.

Virendra Kumar is the new MoS in the Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Minority Affairs. Ashwini Kumar Chaubey is the new MoS in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Choubey and Shukla are believed to be RSS nominees.

Some of the existing ministers have lost their portfolios.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore replaced Vijay Goel in the Sports Ministry. Goel, who earlier held an independent charge, will be the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Mahesh Sharma lost tourism ministry, only retains culture.

Uma Bharti continues to be a cabinet minister. Bharti was eased out of her earlier ministry for not delivering on PM Modi's pet project of cleaning the Ganga. She has been given the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, along with SS Ahluwalia as MoS, who lost his Parliamentary Affairs portfolio. She skipped Sunday's oath ceremony.

Smriti Irani, Harsh Vardhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Narendra Singh Tomar continue to hold more than one portfolio.

PM Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah met the new ministers on Sunday morning at the Prime Minister's residence. Modi told them to perform and "do a good job." His council of ministers will now have 76 ministers, up from 73.