Jaishankar becomes External Affairs Minister; Nirmala Sitharaman gets Finance Ministry

Former Indian Foreign Service officer S Jaishankar has been appointed as the new External Affairs Minister, the position formerly held by BJP veteran Sushma Swaraj –whose performance as the External Affairs Minister in the previous Modi government was widely acknowledged as an extremely exceptional one.

His induction into the key ministry is the most surprising move that has been witnessed on the day of the inauguration of the new BJP government.

It is expected that his experience as a former Foreign Secretary will make his tenure as the External Affairs Minister less difficult.

Another surprising appointment is the appointment of former Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as the new Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister.

Other major appointees are BJP president Amit Shah and former Home Minister Rajnath Singh. When the former has been inducted in the top of the Home Ministry, the latter has been appointed as the new Defence Minister.

Interestingly, this time, Smriti Irani has won the Women and Child Development ministry, the ministry which was being managed by Meneka Gandhi during the previous NDA tenure, in addition to the Textile ministry, the ministry that she was handling during the previous NDA regime.

Former Finance Minister Piyush Goyal is the one of the few retained ministers, who has faced a serious disappointment, as per a political observer’s view. He has lost his Finance Ministry to Nirmala Sitharaman. Anyway, he has won the Railway Ministry and the Commerce and Industry Ministry.

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