Modi govt 2.0: Smriti Irani gets WCD Ministry

Actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani received the cabinet post of Women and Child Development Minister in the 17th Lok Sabha under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Smriti Irani joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003, and in 2004 she became the vice-president of the Maharashtra Youth wing. In the 2004 Lok Sabha Elections, she was defeated by Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk constituency. Despite the loss, she was nominated as an executive member of the party's central committee.

In December 2004, she blamed Narendra Modi who was then the Gujarat Chief Minister, for BJP's electoral losses and threatened to fast unto death until he resigned. However, she later retracted this demand after BJP's central leadership threatened to take action against her.

In 2010, she became the national secretary of the party and the All India President of the party's women's wing. In 2011, she became a member of the Rajya Sabha and in 2012, became the party's vice-president. In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, she contested against Rahul Gandhi, in the latter's bastion Amethi at Uttar Pradesh.

She lost by a margin of 12.3% votes, and the uphill fight earned her a place in the cabinet as the Minister of Human Resource Development. On 2016, she was moved to the Textiles Ministry in PM Modi’s cabinet reshuffle and in 2017, she was handed the additional charge of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India).

In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, she again contested against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi, only to win this time by a margin of 55,120 votes.

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