Piyush Goyal gets Railways; Nirmala Sitharaman gets Defence
Nirmala Sitharaman is the first woman defence minister after Indira Gandhi.
New Delhi: After a major reshuffle of the Union Cabinet on Sunday, Piyush Goyal was handed over the charge of Railways Ministry and Nirmala Sitharaman was given the portfolio of Defence Minister.
Sitharaman became the second woman Defence Minister of the country; first was Indira Gandhi.
The Defence portfolio was until now with Arun Jaitley, who continues to be the Minster of Finance and also the Minister of Corporate Affairs.
Sitharaman, who was holding the Commerce portfolio as a Minister of State, was elevated along with Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to the cabinet rank.
As the Defence Minister, Sitharaman will be a member of the crucial Cabinet Committee on Security. The Prime Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister and the Finance Minister are also part of the committee.
Who gets what:
Ministers | Portfolios |
Uma Bharti | Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation |
Nitin Gadkari | Ministry of Water Resources, River Development Ganga Rejuvenation (additional charge) |
Dharmendra Pradhan | Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry (additional charge) |
Narendra Singh Tomar | Ministry of Mines (additional charge) |
Suresh Prabhu | Minister of Commerce and Industry |
Rajyavardhan Rathore | Minister (Independent Charge) of Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports |
Hardeep Puri | Minister of State (MoS) Urban Development Ministry |
Alphons Kannanthanam | MoS (Independent Charge) Ministry of Tourism MoS Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology |
Ashwini Kumar Choubey | MoS Health and Family Welfare |
Vijay Goel | MoS Parliamentary Affairs, MoS Statistics and Program Implementation |
Anant Kumar Hegde | MoS Skill Development and Entrepreneurship |
RK Singh | MoS (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Power MoS (Independent Charge) of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy |
Giriraj Singh | MoS (Independent Charge) Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises |