Smriti Irani is the new Textiles Minister

The announcement of portfolios for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new-look Cabinet saw some big portfolio changes among the existing ministers. In one such change, Smriti Irani will now take charge as Textiles Minister. She has taken over from Santosh Kumar Gangwar, who has now been given the Finance department. Ajay Tamta will also be given an active role in the Textiles Department.

Irani was earlier the Minister of Human Resource Development. She joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003. She became Vice President of the Maharashtra Youth Wing in 2004. In the 2004 general elections for the 14th Lok Sabha, she contested unsuccessfully against Kapil Sibal from the Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi. She was nominated as executive member of the central committee of the BJP.

In 2010, Irani was appointed National Secretary of BJP and on June 24, she was appointed All India President of the BJP’s women’s wing, BJP Mahila Morcha. In August 2011, she was sworn in as a member of parliament from Gujarat to the Rajya Sabha.

On May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi appointed her as the Minister of Human Resource Development in his cabinet.

Following is the new list of appointments: Ravi Shankar Prasad as Law Minister, Venkaiah Naidu in New I and B Ministry, Prakash Javadekar as HRD Minister, Vijay Goel as Sports Minister, Sadananda Gowda in Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and Ananth Kumar as Parliamentary Affairs Minister. Hansraj Gangaram has been given Home affairs, Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi has been given drinking water and sanitation department, Anupriya Patel gets Health and family welfare, Faggan Singh Kulaste given health and family welfare, Jayant Sinha given Civil aviation, Arjun Ram Meghwal given finance & corporate affairs, Ramdas Athawale given social justice and empowerment department, MJ Akbar given External Affairs, and SS Aluhwalia given agriculture and farmers welfare, parliamentary affairs department.