Raje reshuffles Cabinet after inducting 8 new ministers

Yash Goyal

Jaipur, December 10

Days before the third anniversary of the BJP government, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Saturday night effected a major Cabinet reshuffle giving surprise to her loyalists R S Rathore, Kiran Maheshwari, G S Kheenvsar and Rajpal Singh Shekhawat after inducting four Cabinet ministers and four ministers of states.

The Chief Minister has not made any changes in portfolio of six Cabinet ministers, including G C Kataria (Home), Nandlal Meena (Tribal), P L Saini (Agriculture), Yunus Khan (Transport), Dr Ram Prasad (Irrigation), Arun Chaturvedi (Social justice) and five MoS.

RS Rathore who have been enjoying Medical and Health Department since Raje's first term is now Panchayati Raj Institutions, Election and Parliamentary Affairs minsiter. Rathore's portfolio has been allotted to KC Saraf, till now looking after Higher Education department.

Kiran Maheshwari, till now PHED Minister, has been allotted priced portfolio of Higher Education, Technical Education, S&T, Sanskrit departments.

Industry Minister G S Kheenvsar has been moved to the Forest, Environment and Youth Affairs, and his portfolio has been allocated to R S Shekhawat, who was holding UDH and civic bodies departments.

Surendra Goyal also bagged PHED portfolio leaving the PRI department. 

Food and Civil Supply department has been snatched from Hem Singh Bhadan and is allotted Rajasthan Motor Garage and GAD departments.

From today's inducted ministers Ajay Singh elevated to cabinet rank with the same Cooperative and Gopala departments, while Babul Lal Verma who was earlier MoS Transport is given portfolio of Food and Civil Supplies with cabinet rank.

Srichand Kriplani is given cabinet portfolio of UDH and Local Self bodies, while Jaswant Singh as Labour Department and Employment.

The four new MoSs — Dhansingh Rawat is now going to hold PRI, Banshidhar medical, Susheel Katara PHED and Kamsa Tribal Development. 

Two MoS Arjun Lal (Law), and Jeetmal Khant (GAD) do not figure in the reshuffled cabinet, and probably dropped, the CMO sources said. 

Governor Kalayan Singh administered the oath to BJP MLAs Ajay Singh, Babulal Verma, Srichand Kriplani and Jaswant Yadav as cabinet ministers. Singh and Verma have been promoted to the cabinet status from MoS Cooperative and Transport, respectively. 

While, Banshidhar Bajwa, Kamsa Meghwal, Dhan Singh Rawat and Sushil Katara have been inducted as MoS.