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Tag: Jyotiraditya Scindia

  • MP: Jyotiraditya Scindia conducts aerial survey of flood-hit areas in Gwalior-Chambal region

    By PTI

    GUNA: Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Sunday conducted an aerial survey of flood-hit areas of the Gwalior-Chambal region and directed officials to restore public services on priority.

    Taking a jibe at Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath, who conducted aerial surveys of the flood-affected region on Saturday, Scindia said the former should have got down to see the “ground reality”.

    “One should not confine himself just to conducting aerial surveys. Whenever such visits are made. Those conducting such visits should also get down on the ground to see the actual situation,” Scindia told reporters when asked about Nath’s aerial survey.

    Talking to reporters in Gwalior before surveying in the morning, Scindia had said the region had not witnessed such devastation in the past four decades.

    At least 24 people died and thousands were evacuated to safety as rains lashed the Chambal-Gwalior region of north Madhya Pradesh earlier this week.

    On Sunday, state Home Minister Narottam Mishra said the flood situation was improving following which no rescue operation was undertaken.

    He said nearly 14,000 people were staying in more than 230 relief camps in the affected districts.

    “The ground situation is more important than aerial surveys and that is why wherever I undertake such surveys, I make it sure to visit those places on the ground as well to assess the actual problems being faced by the people.”

    “My feet are always rooted to the ground. I don’t believe in just aerial surveys. Anyway, this is a crisis time and the ruling party, as well as opposition members, are first the public servants, and therefore, they should serve the people with dedication,” the Guna royal said.

    After conducting the aerial survey, Scindia discussed the situation with ministers and officials.

    He asked them to restore public services on priority.

    Scindia also directed them to provide relief money to the affected people without delay and also the drinking water. He said transmission lines and transformers are repaired immediately and power restored.

    Also, he asked officials to ensure speedy distribution of food grains even in those areas where roads are damaged, sources close to the minister said quoting him.

    Scindia also directed officials to organise health camps in the affected villages to check the spread of diseases.

    He also criticized Congress for its stand on COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns.

    “People are aware of the reality of that party (Congress) and their ideology. They are not bothered about the people’s lives and believe in doing cheap politics,” he added.

    Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Minister Mahendra Singh Sisodia raised the issue of Soda village which gets cut-off in every rainy season and urged for finding a permanent solution, sources said.

    Besides Sisodia, energy minister Pradyumna Singh Tomar, BJP’s Guna Lok Sabha MP KP Yadav and senior officials among others were present.

  • Connectivity boost: Indigo to start eight new flights from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: Eight new flights will start from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh to boost air connectivity of the Mahakoshal region with the rest of the country. Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in a tweet on Thursday informed “eight new flights will begin from Jabalpur on a daily basis”.

    “These new flights are Mumbai-Jabalpur-Mumbai, Delhi-Jabalpur-Delhi, Indore-Jabalpur-Indore and Hyderabad-Jabalpur-Hyderabad,” he said.

    2/220-28 अगस्त के बीच शुरू होने जा रही ये सेवाएँ जबलपुर में विकास की गति को नयी ऊंचाइयों तक पहुँचाने में महत्वपूर्ण साबित होंगी।
    — Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) July 29, 2021

    Four flights will start on August 20, while the remaining four will commence operation on August 28, Scindia’s close aide and the BJP media panelist Pankaj Chaturvedi said. He also informed that these flights will be started by the low-cost carrier Indigo.

    Thanking Indigo, Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha said, “Jabalpur has good traffic. It’s a good commercial decision. Jabalpur needs more connectivity.”

  • Congress leader sends Burnol to Madhya Pradesh Minister Narottam Mishra over Jyotiraditya Scindia’s elevation

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: Trading barbs over the induction of Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Union cabinet, a Congress leader on Saturday sent tubes of Burnol cream to Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra to ‘ease pain’.

    Mishra on Thursday had said that those who are feeling jealous about Scindia, a former Congressman, getting into the Narendra Modi cabinet should be given Burnol (which is used to treat minor burn injuries).

    “When the Congress issued a statement about a betrayal by Scindia, Mishra said he would send us Burnol. Now we have sent two tubes of the ointment to Mishra because he needs them more,” state Congress spokesperson Narendra Saluja said.

    The tubes were sent through an e-commerce platform, he said.

    “One tube is from Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, because Mishra was eyeing his post. Another tube is from state Congress chief Kamal Nath because Mishra is obsessed with him and continuously talks about him,” Saluja said.

    State BJP secretary Rahul Kothari said it was a cheap stunt.

    “This is a cheap tactic being used by Congress. The opposition party should tell us what kind of ointment Nath needs, because he travels only by air and now Scindia has become the aviation minister,” Kothari retorted.

    Scindia brought down the Kamal Nath government in MP last year when he and 22 Congress MLAs loyal to him quit the party and joined the BJP.

  • Jyotiraditya Scindia takes charge as Civil Aviation Minister 

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday took charge of the Civil Aviation Ministry.

    Scindia, a prominent leader from Madhya Pradesh, was sworn in as a cabinet minister on Wednesday.

    He joined BJP in March 2020 and is a Rajya Sabha member.

    General V K Singh also took charge as the Minister of State for Civil Aviation.

    Scindia has taken over the charge of the ministry at a time when the civil aviation sector is facing strong headwinds due to the coronavirus pandemic which has impacted overall demand and has also resulted in financial woes for the industry players.

    The government is also moving ahead with the disinvestment process for the national carrier Air India.

    Scindia has served as a Minister of State for Communications, Commerce and Industry and power during the Congress-led UPA government.

    The scion of the former royal family of Gwalior was inducted into the UPA government in 2007 and remained a part of the Union Cabinet till 2014.

    He resigned from Congress and joined BJP in March 2020.

    His move triggered a chain of events that finally culminated in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh and paved the way for the saffron party to assume power which it lost towards the end of 2018.

    Born on January 1, 1971, and educated in Harvard and Stanford institutions, Scindia has traversed a long way after contesting his maiden election as a Congress candidate in 2002, a bypoll in the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which was held because of the sudden death of his father, Madhavrao Scindia, in a plane crash.

  • Union Cabinet: Mansukh Mandavia new Health Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw gets Railways

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Manuskh Mandavia was made the new Health Minister and bureaucrat-turned-politician Ashwinin Vaishnaw the new Railway Minister on Wednesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi effected a major overhaul of the Union cabinet.

    Mandavia has also been given the Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministry, whereas Vaishnaw will also be the Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology Minister, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said Wednesday.

    Jyotiraditya Scindia has been made the Civil Aviation Minister, while Home Minister Amit Shah has been given charge of the newly-created Ministry of Cooperation.

    Piyush Goyal will now be the Minister of Textiles, besides being the Minister of Commerce and Industry; and the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

    Dharmendra Pradhan will be the new Education Minister and the Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

    Ramchandra Prasad Singh will be the new Steel Minister, while Pashupati Kumar Paras has been made the Minister of Food Processing Industries.

    Kiren Rijiju will be the Minister of Law and Justice while Hardeep Singh Puri will be the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs Minister.

    Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State were sworn-in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan here Wednesday evening.

  • PM Narendra Modi carries out major overhaul of Cabinet; Sarbananda Sonowal, Jyotiraditya Scindia brought in

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: In a major overhaul, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought in Sarbananda Sonowal, Narayan Rane and Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Cabinet while dropping as many as 12 ministers including Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar.

    Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State, comprising new faces and those elevated, were sworn in at a ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

    While most of the members took oath in Hindi, a few of them took it in English.

    This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.

    An extensive and protracted review was carried out by Modi and the BJP top brass through a series of meetings with ministers ahead of Wednesday’s big exercise.

    ALSO READ: SP Singh Baghel, BL Verma: Two prominent OBC faces from Uttar Pradesh

    These meetings were also held in the wake of widespread criticism of the Central government’s handling of the COVID crisis.

    Rane, 69, a Rajya Sabha MP and a former Maharashtra chief minister, was the first to take oath.

    After Rane, Sonowal, former Assam chief minister, took oath in English.

    The 58-year-old leader has earlier served as Union Minister of State (Independent charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; and Sports and Youth Affairs under Prime Minister Modi Congress-turned-BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, a Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, also took oath as a Cabinet minister.

    ALSO READ: Meenakshi Lekhi – From BJP face in media to Union Minister

    The 50-year-old leader was Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and Union Minister of State for Commerce & Communications in the earlier UPA government.

    Lok Sabha MP from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh Virendra Kumar, Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha Ashwini Vaishnaw, Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar and JD(U) leader R C P Singh, Lok Sabha MP from Bihar’s Hajipur Pashupati Kumar Paras, were also sworn-in as Cabinet ministers.

    Kiren Rijiju, R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh Mandaviya, Parshottam Rupala, G Kishan Reddy and Anurag Thakur were elevated to the Cabinet level.

    ALSO READ: Bhupender Yadav – BJP’s ever-dependable organisation man, parliamentarian in Cabinet now

    Bhupendra Yadav, who has been serving in the BJP organisation as a general secretary, was also sworn-in as a Cabinet minister.

    As many as 28 Ministers of State took oath including seven from Uttar Pradesh which goes to polls next year with the BJP seeking a second term there.

    Pankaj Choudhary, Anupriya Patel, Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, Kaushal Kishore, S P S Baghel and Ajay Kumar– all Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh — took oath as new Union Ministers of State.

    ALSO READ: Ajay Bhatt – Uttarakhand leader who led BJP to massive win in Assembly polls

    B L Verma, a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, was also sworn-in as a Minister of State.

    Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shobha Karandlaje, MPs from Karnataka; Darshana Vikram Jardosh from Gujarat; New Delhi Lok Sabha MP Meenakashi Lekhi; Annpurna Devi (Jharkhand), A Narayanaswamy (Karnataka); Ajay Bhatt (Uttarakhand), Chauhan Devusinh (Gujarat), were also sworn in as MoS.

    Others who took oath as Ministers of State at the ceremony were Bhagwanth Khuba (Karnataka); Kapil Moreshwar Patil (Maharashtra); Pratima Bhoumik (Tripura); Subhas Sarkar (West Bengal); Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad (Maharashtra); Rajkumar Ranjan Singh (Manipur); MPs Bharati Pawar (Maharashtra), Bishweswar Tudu (Odisha) and Shantanu Thakur (West Bengal) Munjapara Mahendrabhai (Gujarat), John Barla and Nisith Pramanik (West Bengal); and BJP’s Tamil Nadu state president L Murugan.

    At least 16 entrants to the Council of Ministers are first time MPs.

    ALSO READ: Sarbananda Sonowal’s roller-coaster journey to a second time berth in Narendra Modi Cabinet

    Earlier, four senior Union ministers — Prasad, Javadekar, Vardhan and Education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” — were among 12 ministers who resigned on Wednesday ahead of the cabinet reshuffle.

    Besides these four, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar, Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Debasree Chaudhuri, Minister of State for Jal Shakti Rattan Lal Kataria and Minister of State for Environment Babul Supriyo also resigned.

    Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot had resigned after he was made Governor of Karnataka on Tuesday.

    ALSO READ: Raj Kumar Singh elevated to Union Cabinet Minister rank

    Prasad and Javadekar, who had been the face of Cabinet briefings announcing key Cabinet decisions on several occasions in the past few years, were present at the swearing-in ceremony here after resigning as ministers.

    Vardhan was also present at the ceremony.

    With this reset, Modi has brought in young faces and has also given representation to various social groups and regions in the reshuffle.

  • Year post ‘ghar wapsi’, Jyotiraditya Scindia rewarded for giving MP to BJP

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: More than a year after playing a key role in installation of a BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia was rewarded with a berth in the Union Cabinet, a familiar terrain for the Rajya Sabha member who had served as a junior minister in the Congress-led UPA government.

    Scindia (50) resigned from the Congress and joined the BJP in March 2020 and his move triggered a chain of events which finally culminated in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government just 15 months after its formation, paving the way for the saffron party to assume power which it lost towards the end of 2018.

    Cabinet Reshuffle LIVE | Scindia, Sonowal, Narayan Rane take oath as Union Ministers

    On joining the BJP, he was made a Rajya Sabha member, while Shivraj Singh Chouhan came back as the chief minister.

    The scion of the former royal family of Gwalior had started showing signs of restlessness after the Congress high command chose veteran Kamal Nath over him to take over as the chief minister in December 2018.

    Things came to a head when Scindia warned of “hitting the streets” against his own party-led government if promises made to people in the manifesto were not fulfilled. The then chief minister Kamal Nath’s retort that Scindia was free to carry out his threat to launch an agitation, finally proved his undoing.

    Born on January 1, 1971, and educated in Harvard and Stanford institutions, Scindia has traversed a long way after contesting his maiden election as a Congress candidate in 2002, a bypoll in the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which was held because of the sudden death of his father, Madhavrao Scindia, in a plane crash.

    Supporters of BJP MP Jyotiraditya Scindia celebrate his inclusion in the new Union Cabinet, outside the BJP office in Bhopal.”There is enthusiasm among MP youth. We are celebrating, distributing sweets as Modiji has given an opportunity to youth leadership,” said a supporter pic.twitter.com/jR2H1q0Xh4
    — ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2021

    In 2007, he was inducted into the UPA government and remained a part of the Union Cabinet till 2014 by serving as a minister of state for communications, commerce and industry and power. In 2014, he was again elected from Guna, his traditional seat for a fourth time but lost from the constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to BJP candidate KP Yadav, who was once close to him.

    Scindia was the face of the Congress campaign in his capacity as the chairman of the poll campaign committee during the 2018 assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh. However, when the party came to power in the state after a drought of 15 years, the coveted post of chief minister went to Nath.

    After that he also lost the Lok Sabha polls from Guna and since then, he was not feeling comfortable with the Congress leadership in the state, sources close to him said.

    “While in the Congress, Scindia once paid a courtesy visit to Shivraj Singh Chouhan (then he was not CM) and that was the first indication of Scindia hobnobbing with the BJP,” his close aide Pankaj Chaturvedi said.

    Then came the big act – 22 Congress MLAs loyal to Scindia, including six ministers, resigned from their assembly’s membership and toppled the Congress government. The BJP rewarded his loyalists by inducting most of them into the cabinet of Chouhan.

    A majority of them later won assembly bypolls necessitated by the mass resignations of Congress MLAs.

    In the run-up to the bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, when Scindia was asked about the ‘political coup’ and when he had taken the final call to topple the Congress government, he told PTI, “When Nath asked me to hit the road and that was the final call.”

    Scindia was the second member from his clan to pull down a Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, decades after ‘Rajmata’ Vijaya Raje Scindia toppled the “anti-people” Congress government in the state, Chouhan earlier said.

    The entire Scindia family is now part of one party (BJP), Chouhan had said.

  • PM Modi rejigs Cabinet; Sonowal, Scindia brought in; 12 ministers exit

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Effecting a big reset, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday brought in Sarbananda Sonowal, Narayan Rane and Jyotiraditya Scindia as Cabinet ministers while dropping as many as 12 ministers including Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar.

    As many as 15 Cabinet ministers, including some new faces, were sworn-in at the swearing in ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

    While 13 members took oath in Hindi, two took in English.

    Rane, 69, a Rajya Sabha MP and a former Maharashtra chief minister, was the first to take oath.

    After Rane, Sonowal, former Assam chief minister, took oath in English.

    The 58-year-old leader has earlier served as Union Minister of State (Independent charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; and Sports and Youth Affairs under Prime Minister Modi Congress-turned-BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, a Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, also took oath as a Cabinet minister.

    The 50-year-old leader has been Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and Union Minister of State for Commerce & Communications in the earlier UPA government.

    Lok Sabha MP from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh Virendra Kumar, Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha Ashwini Vaishnaw, Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar and JD(U) leader R C P Singh, Lok Sabha MP from Bihar’s Hajipur Pashupati Kumar Paras, were also sworn-in as Cabinet ministers.

    Kiren Rijiju, R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh Mandaviya, Parshottam Rupala, G Kishan Reddy and Anurag Thakur were elevated to the Cabinet level.

    Bhupendra Yadav, who has been serving in the BJP organisation as a general secretary, was also sworn-in as a Cabinet minister.

    Earlier, four senior Union ministers — Prasad, Javadekar, Vardhan, Pokhriyal — were among 12 ministers who resigned on Wednesday ahead of the cabinet reshuffle.

    Besides these four, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar, Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Debasree Chaudhuri, Minister of State for Jal Shakti Rattan Lal Kataria and Minister of State for Environment Babul Supriyo also resigned.

    Prasad and Javadekar had also been the face of Cabinet briefings, announcing key Cabinet decisions on several occasions in the past few years.

    This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.

    With this reset, Modi has brought in young faces and has also given representation to various social groups and regions in the reshuffle.

  • Leaders reaching Delhi, appointment of guvs, new ministry: Loaded signals for big Cabinet expansion

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: Decks have been cleared for the expansion of the council of ministers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the government on Tuesday unveiling a new Ministry of Cooperatives along with the appointment of Union minister Thawar Chand Gehlot as Karnataka Governor. 

    The Prime Minister’s Office has been individually calling the selected candidates to join the council of ministers over phone, with some already reaching the national capital on Tuesday. Gehlot has been suitably accommodated as he was the Scheduled Caste face of the NDA. After a back and forth parleys, a grumbling JD (U) appears to have decided to join the government.

    The JD (U) was earlier seeking parity with the BJP’s Bihar representation in the Union ministry by insisting on two Cabinet and two MoS berths. The other Bihar element in the ministry is expected to be Pashupati Paras, who captured the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) from under the nose of Chirag Paswan. 

    Late Tuesday evening, the government informed that it has created the new ministry to strengthen the co-op movement. The government had earlier created the Ministry of Jal Shakti. “This ministry will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country,” the government said.

    The reshuffle is likely to involve a good number of ministers of state ranks besides filling a few Cabinet berths. Among those who would most probably make it are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal and Narayan Rane. Apart from allies like the JD (U) and the LJP, Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal is likely to get a berth. BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal from Ladakh is also seen as a ministerial hopeful. 

    However, speculation on Shiv Sena returning to the NDA ended with party chief Uddhav Thackeray finally saying there cannot be any accord with the BJP. Caste arithmetic matters in the scheme of things, as the BJP pointed out that of the eight women Governors and Lt Governors it has appointed since 2014, five belong to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.

    That math will be part of the larger strategy for Wednesday’s ministerial expansion so to balance social equations and state representations with an eye on elections next year. With the prime minister having clearly shown his preference for professionals in his team like S Jaishankar and Hardeep Puri, a surprise entry from outside politics isn’t ruled out. From the JD (U), Rajeev Ranjan Singh and R C P Singh are seen to be in the reckoning for the berths. 

    A few of the ministers are likely to be dropped following their performance appraisal, while key loyalists of Union home minister Amit Shah, including Anil Jain and Bhupender Yadav, are being seen as hopefuls to join the government. Portfolios like Commerce, Industry, Food and Consumer Affairs, Food processing, Social Justice, Civil Aviation, I&B are up for grabs, while changing ministries of a few ministers is also not ruled out. 

  • Leaders reaching Delhi, apointment of governors, new ministry: Loaded signals for big Cabinet expansion

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: Decks have been cleared for the expansion of the council of ministers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the government on Tuesday unveiling a new Ministry of Cooperatives along with the appointment of Union minister Thawar Chand Gehlot as Karnataka Governor. 

    The Prime Minister’s Office has been individually calling the selected candidates to join the council of ministers over phone, with some already reaching the national capital on Tuesday. Gehlot has been suitably accommodated as he was the Scheduled Caste face of the NDA. After a back and forth parleys, a grumbling JD (U) appears to have decided to join the government.

    The JD (U) was earlier seeking parity with the BJP’s Bihar representation in the Union ministry by insisting on two Cabinet and two MoS berths. The other Bihar element in the ministry is expected to be Pashupati Paras, who captured the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) from under the nose of Chirag Paswan. 

    Late Tuesday evening, the government informed that it has created the new ministry to strengthen the co-op movement. The government had earlier created the Ministry of Jal Shakti. “This ministry will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country,” the government said.

    The reshuffle is likely to involve a good number of ministers of state ranks besides filling a few Cabinet berths. Among those who would most probably make it are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal and Narayan Rane. Apart from allies like the JD (U) and the LJP, Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal is likely to get a berth. BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal from Ladakh is also seen as a ministerial hopeful. 

    However, speculation on Shiv Sena returning to the NDA ended with party chief Uddhav Thackeray finally saying there cannot be any accord with the BJP. Caste arithmetic matters in the scheme of things, as the BJP pointed out that of the eight women Governors and Lt Governors it has appointed since 2014, five belong to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.

    That math will be part of the larger strategy for Wednesday’s ministerial expansion so to balance social equations and state representations with an eye on elections next year. With the prime minister having clearly shown his preference for professionals in his team like S Jaishankar and Hardeep Puri, a surprise entry from outside politics isn’t ruled out. From the JD (U), Rajeev Ranjan Singh and R C P Singh are seen to be in the reckoning for the berths. 

    A few of the ministers are likely to be dropped following their performance appraisal, while key loyalists of Union home minister Amit Shah, including Anil Jain and Bhupender Yadav, are being seen as hopefuls to join the government. Portfolios like Commerce, Industry, Food and Consumer Affairs, Food processing, Social Justice, Civil Aviation, I&B are up for grabs, while changing ministries of a few ministers is also not ruled out.