New Delhi: The latest reshuffle in the union cabinet led by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, witnessed the induction of nine new ministers. Among these were two new faces, Gajendra S Shekhawat and Ashwani K Chaubey who were made the ministers of state in the agriculture and health respectively. Another minister, Krishna Raj who was already a part of the union cabinet was moved from women and child development ministry and re-allocated the agriculture as a junior minister.
Gajendra Singh and Krishna Raj join the agriculture ministry
The new MoS in the ministry of health and family welfare, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is a Lok Sabha MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan. He is a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on finance and chairperson of the fellowship committee. A technology-savvy, progressive farmer; Shekhawat is one of the most followed political leaders on Quora globally.
Besides his popularity on social media, he is also a sports enthusiast, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has participated at National and All India Inter University level in basketball. He currently is a Member of the All India Council of Sports and the President of Basketball India Players Association. He has a MPhil and MA in Philosophy from Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur.
Another entrant into the agriculture ministry is Mrs Krishna Raj, also an MP from the Lok Sabha who was elected from Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh. She was shifted from the women and child development ministry where she was a junior minister.
Raj has been an active member of the Committee on Petitions, Standing Committee on Energy, Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water and Sanitation.
She was also a member of Joint Committee on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015, besides being a member of the Committee on Public Undertakings.
Ashwani K Choubey starts his innings in the health ministry
The new MoS in the ministry of health and family welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey is a Lok Sabha MP from Buxar in Bihar. He is a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Estimates and Standing Committee on Energy. He is also a member of Central Silk Board. He has been elected for five consecutive terms to the Bihar Legislative Assembly. He has held important portfolios including health, urban development and public health engineering as a Cabinet minister of the Government of Bihar for eight years.
Choubey started early in politics as the president of the Studen’s Union of Patna University, he was an active part of the Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) movement in the 1970s. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Zoology. He was taken into custody during the Emergency under MISA.
He is also credited to have raised the slogan “Ghar – Ghar me ho Shouchalaya ka nirman, Tabhi hoga Ladli Bitiya ka Kanyadaan“, and has helped construct 11,000 toilets for Mahadalit families. He is also known to have an interest in yoga.
Having faced the disastrous Kedarnath floods with his family in 2013, Choubey authored a book Kedarnath Trasadi on the tragedy as well.
