Modi govt 2.0: RS Prasad gets law, electronics and IT

Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of Law and Justice and Electronics and IT in the 16th Lok Sabha, has been given the post of Minister of Law and Justice, Minister of Communications and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology in the 17th Lok Sabha under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Ravi Shankar Prasad began his political career by participating in the anti-emergency movement in the 1970s for which he was jailed. Since 1995 he has been a member of BJP National Executive, the party's top policymaking body.

He became MP and Coal Minister in the first NDA government in 2001, minister of Law and Justice in July 2002 and then Minister of Information and Broadcasting in 2003. In 2006, he went on to become BJP’s national spokesperson and then the Deputy Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha in 2012. After Narendra Modi's ascension to power in 2014, he was made a cabinet minister with important portfolios like Law and Justice and Electronics and IT. Prasad, who has served four terms in the Rajya Sabha, contested in his first Lok Sabha election in 2019 against actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha at the Patna Sahib seat which was formerly a stronghold of Sinha. However, Prasad defeated him by a margin of over six lakh votes.

Also a lawyer by profession, he was the main lawyer who argued the PIL against former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam. He was also the lawyer in the Ayodhya Ram temple case representing 'Ram Lalla', the deity.

The President appointed Narendra Modi as Prime Minister and administered the Oaths of Office and Secrecy to the Members of the Council of Ministers. Here’s a quick lowdown at the new Modi Cabinet.

Cabinet Ministers

Rajnath Singh
Amit Shah
Nitin Jairam Gadkari
DV Sadananda Gowda
Nirmala Sitharaman
Ram Vilas Paswan
Narendra Singh Tomar
Ravi Shankar Prasad
Harsimrat Kaur Badal
Thaawar Chand Gehlot
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’
Arjun Munda
Smriti Zubin Irani
Harsh Vardhan
Prakash Javadekar
Piyush Goyal
Dharmendra Pradhan
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi
Pralhad Joshi
Mahendra Nath Pandey
Arvind Ganpat Sawant
Giriraj Singh
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

Ministers of State (Independent Charge)

Santosh Kumar Gangwar
Rao Inderjit Singh
Shripad Yesso Naik
Jitendra Singh
Kiren Rijiju
Prahalad Singh Patel
Raj Kumar Singh
Hardeep Singh Puri
Mansukh L Mandaviya

Ministers of State

Faggansingh Kulaste
Ashwini Kumar Choubey
Arjun Ram Meghwal
General (Retd.) V. K. Singh
Krishan Pal
Danve Raosaheb Dadarao
G Kishan Reddy
Parshottam Rupala
Ramdas Athawale
Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
Babul Supriyo
Sanjeev Kumar Balyan
Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao
Anurag Singh Thakur
Angadi Suresh Channabasappa
Nityanand Rai
Rattan Lal Kataria
V Muraleedharan
Renuka Singh Saruta
Som Parkash
Rameswar Teli
Pratap Chandra Sarangi
Kailash Choudhary
Debasree Chaudhuri