All You Need to Know About Modi’s 9 New Ministers

Meet the new faces in the Cabinet.

Hardeep Singh (L), Raj Kumar Singh and Anant Kumar Hegde (R).

(Photo: The Quint)

Nine new ministers, including former IFS officer Hardeep Singh Puri, ex-Mumbai Police chief Satyapal Singh and retired IAS officer Alphons Kannanthanam were inducted into the Union Council of Ministers as part of the cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The new faces include BJP MPs Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Bihar), Virendra Kumar (Madhya Pradesh) and Shiv Pratap Shukla (Uttar Pradesh), Anant Kumar Hegde, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Satyapal Singh and Alphons Kannanthanam.

Follow live updates on the Cabinet reshuffle here.

Here’s your guide to the new inductees:

1. Raj Kumar Singh

The Lok Sabha MP from Arrah, Bihar, served as Home Secretary of India under UPA 2. Singh reportedly had serious differences with the then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on several issues, including the Delhi police’s handling of the protests that broke out in the aftermath of the 16 December gangrape and the handling of the Afzal Guru execution. He also famously arrested LK Advani during his Rath Yatra, while he was the district magistrate of Samastipur in 1990.

(Photo Courtesy: Loksabha.nic.in)

2. Satyapal Singh

Former police commissioner of Mumbai, Satyapal Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh.

(Photo Courtesy: loksabha.nic.in)

3. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

Lok Sabha MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Shekhawat is the National General Secretary of the BJP Kisan Morcha.

(Photo Courtesy: loksabha.nic.in)

4. Ashwini Kumar Choubey

Choubey, a BJP MP from Buxar, Bihar, has served as the health minister of the state. Before contesting for the Lok Sabha, he was elected an MLA from Bhagalpur. Choubey was taken into custody during the Emergency under MISA.

(Photo Courtesy: loksabha.nic.in)

5. KJ Alphons Kannanthanam

The IAS officer was elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly in 2006. In 2011, he joined the BJP and was nominated to the party’s National Executive. He first came into prominence in 1989 as the district collector of Kottayam. He was credited for driving up literacy to 100 percent in the town.

(Photo Courtesy: loksabha.nic.in)

6. Anant Kumar Hegde:

Hegde has served in Parliament since the age of 28. He has been a member of various standing committees over the years.

Anant Kumar Hegde is the Founder President of Kadamba, an NGO working in the field of rural development and rural health. He was in the news earlier this year for thrashing three doctors who allegedly made his mother wait for hours for treatment while the staff was performing an operation on another patient. The assault was caught on camera.

(Photo Courtesy: loksabha.nic.in)

(Photo Courtesy: Hardeepsinghpuri.com)

7. Hardeep Singh Puri

Retired diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri has a distinguished four-decade career in diplomacy spanning the multilateral arena behind him. The 65-year-old has served as India's Ambassador to the UN in New York and Geneva. He is also one of the few Indians to preside over the UN Security Council and the only one to have chaired its Counter-terrorism Committee.

He was India's envoy to Brazil and the United Kingdom. Hardeep Singh was also a teacher once for a brief phase and is the author of the book 'Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and The Politics of Chaos.' Earlier this year, he was appointed the chairman of the Research and Information System for Developing Country (RIS).

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Shiv Pratap Shukla)

8. Shiv Pratap Shukla

Former UP minister Shiv Pratap Shukla hails from Gorakhpur. The induction of Shukla, who is a Brahmin face of the party, is being seen as a well-calculated move of the ruling BJP to reap dividends in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by keeping the upper caste in good humour.

The former ABVP student leader was elected as the Provincial Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in 1981. He went to jail several times during his student days. The 65-year-old is known for his work as the Cabinet minister in Uttar Pradesh, where he initiated an 'education for all' scheme and for his efforts to reform conditions for prisoners and various rural development schemes.

He became a minister for jails in 1996-1998 and was later appointed as the minister for rural development in 1998 under Rajnath Singh-led BJP government. Before this tenure, he also held a ministerial post during the Kalyan Singh-led BJP government of 1991-1992. He was appointed vice president of the BJP in UP in February, 2012.

9. Virendra Kumar

A Lok Sabha MP from Tikamgah, Madhya Pradesh, Virendra Kumar is the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour. Kumar had actively taken part in the JP movement in the 1970s, and was jailed for 16 months under the MISA during the Emergency.

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