Modi govt 3.0: Hardeep Singh Puri, Bhupender Yadav, Jitendra Singh retained as Union ministers

Born in a family of Partition refugees in Delhi in 1952, Puri joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1974 and served as an envoy to the UN, Brazil, Japan, and UK among others. After retirement, he joined the BJP in 2013.

Puri was associated with the RSS’ student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) while studying at Delhi University’s Hindu College.

Over the past few years, Puri has helmed the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry while it proposed and executed the construction of the new Parliament building. In his role as Petroleum Minister, he has defended India’s choice to import Russian oil while the West placed sanctions on it after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Puri is in his second term as a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh. In 2019, he unsuccessfully contested the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat for the BJP.

Bhupender Yadav, one of the BJP’s key strategists who played a significant role in delivering poll victories in Odisha’s state Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections, is also set to be re-inducted into the Cabinet. Yadav, 54, held key portfolios of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as well as Labour and Employment in the outgoing Cabinet.

Yadav made his electoral debut during the 2024 general elections and won from the Alwar Lok Sabha seat in Rajasthan. Prior to this, he was a member of Rajya Sabha and a long record of legislative experience by being part of several parliamentary committees.

He was inducted into the Union Cabinet in July 2021 and has also played key roles in the BJP’s election management for states such as Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat and Jharkhand. A lawyer by profession, Yadav hails from Rajasthan and has authored two books, one on the party and another on Supreme Court and forest conservation.

Yadav defeated Congress’s Lalit Yadav by a margin of 48,282 votes.

Dr Jitendra Singh was Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Ministry of Science and Technology, MoS for the Prime Minister’s Office, MoS for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, and MoS for Atomic Energy and Department of Space.

A physician by training, he got the reputation of being a giant-killer when he defeated former J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad by a margin of over 60,000 votes in his maiden electoral battle in the Udhampur parliamentary constituency in 2014.

He has been a strong opponent of the now abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, which guaranteed special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

This year, he defeated nearest rival Lal Singh of the Congress by a margin of 1.22 lakh votes, and created history by emerging victorious from Udhampur for a third time after two full terms.

The 67-year-old is also a member of BJP’s national executive.

Before joining politics, Singh had also been a newspaper columnist, writing for local newspapers in J&K.

BJP leader and outgoing Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat took oath as a Union minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Council of Ministers on Sunday.

The 56-year-old MP has just been elected to the Parliament from Jodhpur for the third time. Despite facing a stiff competition from Congress’s Karan Singh Uchiyarda, Shekhawat emerged the winner with a margin of over 1.15 lakh votes or 8%. However, the winning margin was down from the massive 37.98% in 2014 and the 20.36% in 2019.

Born in Jaisalmer, Shekhawat is a prominent Rajput face for the BJP in Rajasthan and is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Beyond student politics too, Shekhawat was associated with the RSS through its Swadeshi Jagran Manch and the Seema Jan Kalyan Samiti. As he moved on to the BJP, he held various positions in the party including as member of the party’s national Micro and Small Industry (MSI) cell and the BJP’s Rajasthan state executive body.

He was first fielded from the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and went on to win by a huge margin of 4.1 lakh votes. After being a member of various ministerial committees, he was made Union Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in September 2017.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha, with Congress in power in Rajasthan, he faced off against then sitting Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot in Jodhpur. Though Gehlot senior threw his weight behind his son’s campaign, Shekhawat again prevailed winning with a margin of 2.74 lakh votes. In the second Modi government, Shekhawat was made the Union Jal Shakti minister, a charge he held throughout the term.