Modi Government 3.0: Nitin Gadkari and Nirmala Sitharaman assume ministerial roles in new govt

Nitin Gadkari assumed charge as Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways on Wednesday for the third consecutive time under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi Meanwhile Nirmala Sitharaman also assumed charge of the Finance Ministry for the second consecutive term on the same dayAccording to PTI Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the final budget for FY25 soon that will set the tone for the Modi 30 governments priorities and direction for Viksit Bharat It is likely to be presented to the newly formed 18th Lok Sabha next monthMinisters of State Ajay Tamta and Harsh Malhotra also took charge alongside Gadkari and Sitharaman on Wednesday according to ANI reports Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary was also present Chaudhary assumed charge on Tuesday evening as reported by PTIGadkari thanked Prime Minster Modi for reassigning the role for the third time Heartfelt gratitude to PM Modi for reassigning me this role in Modi 30 Under your visionary leadership India will be equipped with worldclass modern infrastructure at an accelerated pace the Union Minister said in a post on XGadkari won the Lok Sabha elections from Maharashtras Nagpur constituency by a margin of 137 603 votes However Gadkaris winning margin went down by 78397 in this election In 2019 he had defeated Congress Nana Patole by 216000 votesGadkari entered politics as a student leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad ABVP and later joined the Janata Yuva Morcha the youth wing of the BJPThe BJP leader has been a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council since 1989 He served as the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 19992005 and also headed the Maharashtra Pradesh BJP till 2009 as the State president In the same year he was elevated to the post of BJP national president making him the youngestever party presidentFrom 1995 until 1999 the BJP leader was Maharashtras PWD minister In January 2013 Gadkari gave up the party president post to become the Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Minister of Shipping in the first Modi Cabinet in May 2014Gadkari kept his position as Minister of Road Transport and Highways during the second term of the BJPled central government in 2019 The Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Water Resources River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation were replaced with the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium EnterprisesNirmala Sitharaman on the other hand before entering into the politics she was part of the corporate world in the UK where she was living with her husband Parakala PrabhakarSitharamans political career began in 2008 when she joined the BJP and in two years became the partys second woman spokesperson after Sushma Swaraj Before entering political world she served as a deputy director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad and also started a school in the city From 2003 to 2005 she was also a member of the National Commission for WomenSitharaman was given the charge of the finance portfolio in the newly reelected Modi government after the 2019 general elections when her mentor Arun Jaitley took ill She became the first fulltime woman Finance Minister in Independent IndiaEarlier Indira Gandhi had held finance as an additional portfolio for a short duration when she was the prime minister of IndiaIn 2017 Jaitley departed from the colonialera tradition of presenting Budget Following the footsteps of her mentor Sitharaman also did away with the traditional Budget briefcase and instead went for a bahikhata with the National Emblem to carry the speech and other documentsShe has many such records to her credit in her political career She created a record when she was appointed as the first female Raksha Mantri or Defence Minister in 2017 Prior to that she was industry and commerce minister According to the reports she also set a record by presenting the sixth Budget in a row five annual Budgets and one interim a feat achieved so far only by former Prime Minister Morarji DesaiSoon after taking over the first major reform was a cut in base corporate tax to 22 per cent from 30 per cent to prop up the economy hit by demonetisation and GST implementationIn the year 2019 India weathered the Covid19 pandemic with an array of policy measures announced for the poor and continued its tag of the fastest growing major economy and a bright spot in the world economyTo overcome the hardship during the pandemic the government announced a special economic package worth Rs 20 lakh crore equivalent to roughly 10 per cent of Indias GDP She steered the economy from nearly 24 per cent contraction in the first quarter of FY21 to the fastest growing world economySitharaman would be setting a record by presenting the seventh straight Budget and sixth consecutive final Budget Sitharaman is credited for taking forward secondgeneration reforms during her last tenureWith inputs from PTI and ANI