Picture Courtesy : The Financial Express
In a significant cabinet reshuffle of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, Smriti Irani has been removed from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry as Rajyavardhan Rathore will now take independent charge of the portfolio.
Smriti Irani now retains only the Textile Ministry. She was earlier removed as the HRD Minister and was replaced by Prakash Javadekar making this the second time that she has been shunted out of a ministry after being embroiled in controversy.
In I&B Ministry there were spate of controversies – fake news order and withdrawal, National Film awards furore , where 68 winners had skipped the ceremony after it was announced at the last moment that President Ram Nath Kovind would felicitate only 11 winners out of the total 137. They were miffed withy minister giving away the awards instead of the President
The Finance Ministry, which was being handled by Arun Jaitley since 2014, will now be headed by Piyush Goyal for the time being. Goyal will be handling the finance portfolio in addition to the Railway Ministry.
Jaitley has been unwell for the past several months and he underwent a successful kidney transplant at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Goyal will be in-charge of the Finance Ministry till the time Jaitley gets better.
KJ Alphons, who was a Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology was given charge of the Tourism Ministry. SS Ahluwalia will now look after the Electronics Ministry after being relieved of the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation.
