Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked Harsimrat Kaur Badal for becoming a Minister in his Council of Ministers, while leaving her husband and SAD president Sukhbir Badal for managing affairs at home.
Harsimrat, who was the Union Minister of Food Processing during Modi’s first term, on Thursday took oath as the Cabinet Minister for the second time. With her, another MP from Punjab, BJP’s Som Parkash, also took oath of office and secrecy as the Minister of State.
Hardeep Singh Puri, Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh who unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar, also took oath as the Minister of State with independent charge for the second time. All three took oath in English.
While Harsimrat and Puri had been served as the Ministers during the BJP-led NDA Government’s previous term also, Parkash is a first-timer.
Scoring a hat-trick from Bathinda, Akali MP Harsimrat hailed from a powerful Badal family of Punjab, which is heading the state’s regional party, SAD. Hailing from Majithia family, Harsimrat is the daughter-in-law of Punjab’s five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, and wife of SAD president Sukhbir Badal, who has also won this election from Ferozepur.
Harsimrat won 2019 Lok Sabha elections, defeating her nearest rival Congress’ Amarinder Singh Raja Warring by a margin of 21,772 votes, with a slight improvement from her 2014 tally, where she had won by 19,395 votes.
BJP leader Som Parkash, Phagwara MLA elected from Hoshiarpur constituency, is one of the new faces chosen by Modi. A retired IAS officer, 70-year-old Som Parkash had served as the Deputy Commissioner of Jalandhar.
In 2017, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the second time from the Phagwara assembly seat Som Parkash won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with 42 percent of the vote in the reserved constituency. He had also contested the 2009 general elections from Hoshiarpur in 2009 but lost just by a couple of hundred votes to Santosh Chaudhary.
Parkash had, this time, replaced his party colleague Vijay Sampla, not only as the Hoshiarpur MP, but also as the Minister of State in the Modi’s cabinet. Parkash holds an MA degree in Economics from Punjab University, Chandigarh.
