Eleven out of 24 Cabinet rank Ministers are first-timers in the Narendra-Modi-led Government that was sworn in on Monday. While nine out of 10 Minister of State (independent charge) were debutants, all the 12 Minister of State are first-time Ministers.
Nitin Gadkari: Nitin Gadkari, 57, a key member of the Narendra Modi’s core group, is both a first-time MP in the lok Sabha and debutant Minister. Gadkari has earned the distinction of being the youngest BJP president. He is known as an able administrator with innovative approaches.
He has had a long innings in Maharashtra as Minister and leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative Council besides working at the national level in different capacities. Gadkari was elected to the lok Sabha from Nagpur, a traditional Congress stronghold, defeating seven-time winner Vilas Mutthemwar by a margin of about three lakh votes.
He hit the spotlight for giving his city a new face through his development work and also earned the nick-name of ‘flyover man during his stint as the PWD Minister for building a series of flyovers in Mumbai. The success of the Mumbai-Pune expressessway also brought him fame, with then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asking him to launch the national highway authority.
Sadananda Gowda: Beginning his political career as a member of the Jan Sangh in late seventies, former Karnataka Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda has made his ministerial debut at the Centre. Sixty-one year old Gowda earned prominence for being the president of the Karnataka unit of the BJP when the party won the Assembly elections for the first time in South India in May 2008. Gowda became a member of the BJP in Karnataka after the split of the Janata Party, and went on to become Chief Minister in 2011. Gowda was elected to the 14th lok Sabha in 2004 from Mangalore, defeating senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily by a margin of 32,314 votes. In the 14th lok Sabha, he was a member of the Committee on Commerce and was appointed as Director of Coffee Board during January 2005. In 2006, Gowda was appointed as president of Karnataka State BJP.
Kalraj Mishra: Kalraj Mishra, a veteran of Uttar Pradesh politics, is making his ministerial debut at the Centre. Seventy-one-year-old Mishra began his political career as a pracharak of RSS in Gorakhpur in eastern UP in 1963. As his association with the then Jan Sangh grew, he was appointed as organising secretary, Bharatiya Jana Sangh at Azamgarh Centre in 1968. He became influenced with the JP Movement and worked as a convener of ‘Sampurna Kranti’ (Total Revolution) started by Jayaprakash Narayan in eastern Uttar Pradesh in 1974. He was a political detainee and was kept in the Deoria jail during Emergency. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha on three occasions — first in 1980, then 1986 and later in August 2001. He has been chief of the BJP’s UP unit and a member of the State legislative Council. During BJP’s rule in Uttar Pradesh, he has been a Cabinet Minister in the State Government.
Narendra Singh Tomar: Rising from a municipal councillor to a member of Parliament, and holding the post of BJP chief of Madhya Pradesh unit, Narendra Singh Tomar is yet another debutant in the Union Council of Minister. Fifty-six-year-old Tomar has held several important positions in the party. Tomar is known for his connect with the rank and file of the party and shares a good rapport with the RSS leadership. The second-time MP, who won lok Sabha poll from Gwalior, made his first foray into active politics in 1980 after he became the president of the Gwalior unit of BJP Youth Forum.
Radha Mohan Singh: An unsung worker of Jan Sangh and BJP all his life, veteran leader Radha Mohan Singh finally got his reward for his years of toil when he was given a berth in the Narendra Modi Government. Singh (64) started his career from Motihari in Bihar as an ABVP Nagar Pramukh way back in 1967. Modi had given the first inkling of Singh likely to play a big role in the BJP-led NDA government by praising him profusely at an election meeting in Motihari. “Radha Mohan Singh is my old friend. We have worked together for a very long time,” Modi had said at the meeting. A five-term MP from Motihari since 1989, Singh has been known as an organisational man all his political life and has been credited by peers and contemporaries in BJP for assiduously contributing to the party's growth in Bihar in the capacity of State unit chief from 2006 to 2009.
Thawar Chand Gehlot: One of the most recognised BJP face for Scheduled Castes in Madhya Pradesh, Gehlot also made it as a debutant Cabinet Minister in the Modi Government. Sixty-six-year-old Gehlot, a Rajya Sabha member, is BJP’s national general secretary. His inclusion in the Union Cabinet is seen as giving representation to the under-privileged section of the society. He was elected to Rajya Sabha in May 2012. Gehlot has tested electoral waters earlier as he has been a member of 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th lok Sabha from Shajapur constituency in the state. Gehlot has held several positions in state and was also head of BJP’s Scheduled Castes Cell. He was also deputed as the central observer of the party for Gujarat and is considered close to Modi.
Harsh Vardhan: Credited with steadfastly uniting various factions in Delhi BJP and leading the party’s aggressive campaign for lok Sabha polls in which it recorded a clean sweep, Harsh Vardhan is also first-timer in the Modi’s Cabinet.
An RSS member since his younger days, fifty-nine-year-old Vardhan was BJP’s chief ministerial nominee in the Assembly polls in December last year and was made the city unit chief of the party in February replacing Vijay Goel. Under his leadership, BJP won all the seven lok Sabha seats in Delhi. A practicing ENT surgeon, Vardhan had taken a strong stand of not trying to cobble up a Government in the city after the party fell short of four seats in the Delhi Assembly polls in December last year.
Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati: He was elected from Vizianagaram, is the only member from the lok Sabha to make it to the Cabinet rank from residual Andhra Pradesh. Ashok was first elected to Andhra Pradesh legislative Assembly in 1978 as a Janata Party candidate. He has been a member of the Telugu Desam Party since its inception in 1982 under the leadership of Telugu superstar and late Chief Minister NT Rama Rao, and was elected to the Assembly for the second time in 1983. He won subsequent elections in 1985, 1989, 1994 and 1999. He was a Minister in Rao's Cabinet and was inducted into the Cabinet of N Chandrababu Naidu as well. Presently, Ashok is in the politburo of TDP. The 63-year-old veteran TDP leader defeated YSR Congress candidate Venkata Swetha Chalapathi Kumara Krishna Rangarao Ravu by a margin of 1,06,911 votes in the just concluded elections.
Three other debutant Cabinet-rank Ministers include Najma Heptullah, Smriti Irani and Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
Nine out of 10 Minister of State (independent charge) are debutants. They include Gen (retd.) VK Singh, Congress turncoat Rao Inderjit Singh, Shripad Naik, Dharmendra Pradhan, Sarbananda Sonowal, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, party treasurer Piyush Goyal, Jitendra Singh and party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman. The lone Minister of State (Independent Charge) with a previous experience as Minister at the Centre is Santosh Kumar Gangwar.
All the Ministers of State are first-timer Ministers. They include GM Siddeshwara, Manoj Sinha, Nihalchand, Upendra Kushwaha, Radhakrishnan P, Kiren Rijiju, Krishan Pal, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava, Raosaheb Dadarao Danve, Vishnu Deo Sai and Sudarshan Bhagat.