Raje elevates Chaturvedi, Bhadana; home for Kataria, Rajpal gets UDH

JAIPUR: Chief minister Vasundhara Raje upgraded the ranks of Arun Chaturvedi and Hem Singh Bhadana from minister of state (MoS) with independent charge to cabinet status on Tuesday. The two ministers' portfolios were, though, kept intact.
The 15 new ministers added a day ago too were allotted portfolios, while making changes in the portfolios of four cabinet ministers from her earlier team.
As expected, cabinet minister Gulab Chand Kataria got home and justice, civil defence and home-guards, prisons, disaster management and relief.All these departments were earlier held by Raje (except for disaster management and relief which was already with Kataria).
The panchayati raj and rural development departments that were earlier handled by Kataria were transferred to the newly inducted cabinet minister Surendra Goyal.
Gajendra Singh Khinwsar, the second cabinet minister with changed portfolios, got industry, NRI, DMIC, youth affairs and sports departments. These too were earlier held by Raje. Khinwsar's earlier department, energy, was passed on to MoS Pushpendra Singh Ranawat, who was inducted in the ministry on Monday.
Primary and secondary education and languages department were taken from education minister Kalicharan Saraf and passed on to newly inducted MoS with independent charge Vasudev Devnani, who handled these departments in the second half of Raje's previous tenure (2003-2008). This was seen curtailing the powers of Saraf, who recently courted controversies with his remarks against teachers.
The departments of Sanwar Lal Jat, who resigned after being elected to the Lok Sabha, were distributed between cabinet ministers Dr Rampratap and Kiran Maheshwari, who too were inducted on Tuesday. Rampratap got water resources, IGC project, command area development and water utilisation, while Maheshwari got PHED and ground water.
Newly appointed cabinet minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat got the coveted urban development and housing (UDH) department.
Election and Waqf departments were added to the portfolios of health minister Rajendra Rathore and transport department was added to the portfolio of PWD minister Yunus Khan. Newly inducted Babu Lal Verma was made the junior minister in the transport department.
MoS (independent charge) Krishnedra Kaur Deepa and Rajkumar Rinwa were allotted tourism and mines departments, respectively. Among other MoS with independent charges Amra Ram got revenue, devasthan and soldiers welfare; Anita Bhadel got women and child welfare and Surendra Pal Singh got labour and investments. MoS without independent charges Jeetmal Khant got general administration department, Arjun Lal got law and Otaram got and devasthan and cow department.