Every fourth BJP lawmaker from MP is a Cabinet minister

THE STATE NOW HAS EIGHT MEMBERS IN PM MODI’S COUNCIL OF MINISTERS AFTER IT WAS RESHUFFLED

BHOPAL: Every fourth BJP parliamentarian from Madhya Pradesh is a Union minister.

The state now has eight members in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers after it was reshuffled and expanded on Tuesday.

The BJP has 26 Lok Sabha members and eight in the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.

Lok Sabha representative Faggan Singh Kulaste and Rajya Sabha MPs Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar became new ministers while Prakash Javadekar, another Rajya Sabha member from the state, was promoted to cabinet rank and given the human resource development portfolio.

The 65-year-old Javadekar was environment minister in the rank of minister of state.

Dave was given the environment ministry with independent charge, a subject close to his heart as he is known to passionately work for conservation of the Narmada river through his NGO, Narmada Samagra. A licensed pilot, Dave has flown over the river on a small plane and rafted through its course once.

An RSS worker, bachelor, and postgraduate in commerce from Gujarati College of Commerce, Indore, he turns 60 on July 6 — a day after he took oath as a central minister.

Besides, Team Modi has foreign minister Sushma Sawarj, steel and mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar, social justice minister Thaverchand Gehlot and minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla — all representing Madhya Pradesh.

The 57-year-old Kulaste, a tribal leader from Mandla, was made a minister of state for health and family welfare. An aspirant for the state BJP president’s post for many years, he was in the news when his name appeared in the MPLAD scam in 2005 and the cash-for-votes scandal in 2008.

Journalist-politician Akbar, 63, will be working with Swaraj in the foreign ministry as a minister of state.