Mansukh Mandaviya named Sports Minister in Modi 3.0 government

With the Olympics approaching, Mansukh Mandaviya will have an immediate challenge a hand.

Dr Mansukh Mandaviya has been appointed as the Sports Minister of India in the new cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He replaces Shri Anurag Thakur as the new Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs.

Mandaviya, who is a two-time Rajya Sabha member, won his Lok Sabha seat from the Porbandar constituency of Gujarat with a comfortable margin of more than 3.83 lakh votes in his maiden general poll. He was sworn in as a cabinet minister on Sunday, having previously also served as the Union health minister during COVID-19. Apart from the Sports Ministry, the 51-year-old has also been handed the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

Meanwhile, Raksha Nikhil Khadse was named the Minister of State (MoS) in the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The BJP politician retained her Lok Sabha seat for a second straight time, winning the Raver constituency in Maharashtra with a margin of over two lakh votes.

Mandaviya was earlier elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012 and 2018. He also served as the health minister in Modi’s previous cabinet in 2021 when the country was battling the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mandaviya, who studied veterinary science, oversaw the implementation of the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination programme, with more than 220 crore doses of vaccines administered in the country.

He was also then simultaneously given charge of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, replacing D V Sadananda Gowda as part of the reshuffle. Mandaviya has replaced the outgoing Harsh Vardhan, who was dropped from the Council of Ministers, as the health minister.

Hailing from a farmer’s family in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, Mandaviya became the youngest member of Legislative Assembly in Gujarat in 2022 after winning the state election from the Palitana constituency. He was then appointed as the secretary of BJP Gujarat and eventually as a member of the Rajya Sabha in 2012.

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Meanwhile, Narendra Modi returned as the Prime Minister for a record third time with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forming a coalition NDA government at the centre. The BJP emerged as the single largest party at the 2024 Lok Sabha elections winning 240 seats.

However, it fell short of an absolute majority and so formed a coalition government through the NDA (National Democratic Alliance). This is the first time in 20 years that India will have a coalition government at the centre.

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