Anurag Thakur missed out on a ministerial post despite winning the Lok Sabha elections for the fifth time.
New Delhi:
Ministers from Modi 2.0 failed to find a place in the new government despite winning the Indian Lok Sabha elections for the fifth time. But a Congress traitor who lost the election was sworn in as a minister yesterday. These are some of the many surprises in the selection of ministers for Modi 3.0 government, who took oath of office yesterday.
Modi 3.0’s surprising choices
Anurag Thakur, who won again in Hamirpur, his stronghold in Himachal Pradesh, was one of the most visible figures in the second Narendra Modi government. After becoming a minister of state after the 2019 elections, Thakur was elevated to cabinet membership in 2021 and given the charge of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This time, despite winning the election again, he missed out on the post. BJP sources said Thakur lost his ministerial status due to the leadership’s decision to reinstate party chief JP Nadda in the cabinet. Nadda is also from Himachal, and the leadership decided that it could not accept two ministers from a mountain state, the sources explained.
Ravneet Singh Bittu, a two-term MP from Punjab and leader of the Indian National Congress Party in the Lok Sabha, switched to the BJP a few weeks before the general elections. The party fielded him from Ludhiana but he lost to state Congress leader Amrinder Raja Singh Waring. Surprisingly, Bittu was selected as a minister and took oath yesterday. He now needs to be elected to either the Indian Lok Sabha or the Indian Senate within the next six months. Bittu is the grandson of Beant Singh, a former Punjab Chief Minister who was assassinated in a Khalistani terrorist attack in 1999. The BJP’s selection of him as a minister suggests that it hopes the Sikh leader will help the party grow in AAP-ruled Punjab.
George Kurian is the general secretary of the BJP in Kerala, which broke new ground in the state by winning seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Though he is not a member of any parliament, he was sworn in as a minister yesterday. A lawyer by profession, he has been with the BJP for about three decades and has held key positions in the party’s minority wing. He has also served as vice-chairman of the National Minorities Commission. The BJP leadership’s decision to select him as a minister indicates the party’s plans to continue its push into the south and reach out to the Christian community in Kerala.
Veteran BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, a former Union Minister and Member of Parliament for over two decades, missed out on a ministerial position despite winning Patna Sahib in Bihar by a landslide. Another important BJP leader, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who was elected as a MP five times, failed to get a ministerial position despite winning the Saran seat three consecutive times. While Modi 3.0 has as many as eight ministers from Bihar, two veteran leaders who served as ministers in both the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments missed out on a ministerial position.
L Murugan is the only minister from the outgoing government who found a place in Modi 3.0 despite losing the elections. While former ministers Smriti Irani and Rajiv Chandrasekhar lost the elections and did not find a place in the new government, the former Tamil Nadu BJP leader took oath despite losing the Nilgiri constituency. Murugan was previously the Minister of State for Home Affairs and was in charge of areas such as Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Information and Broadcasting. He is a Rajya Sabha member.
Veteran BJP leader Parshottam Rupala, who served as a minister in both the first and second terms of the Narendra Modi government, missed out on being part of Modi 3.0 despite his landslide victory in Rajkot constituency in Gujarat. Ahead of the elections, the former Gujarat BJP leader was at the centre of a political storm for his comments on Kshatriyas, which also resonated in North Indian states. Though he managed to win, there was no place for him in the Modi 3.0 team.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane is another leader who won elections but missed out on a ministerial position. A former Shiv Sena and Indian National Congress leader, Rane joined the BJP in 2019 and was appointed Minister for Small and Medium Enterprises in the second Narendra Modi government. A former Rajya Sabha member, Rane won the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat this time but missed out on a ministerial position.
