Bengaluru: Karnataka struck it rich when the Union Cabinet portfolios were announced on Friday with Hubballi-Dharwad MP and former BJP state president Pralhad Joshi bagging the prized portfolio of parliamentary affairs while D.V. Sadananda Gowda was allotted the no less important ministry of chemicals and fertilizers. Nirmala Sitharaman, the Rajya Sabha MP from the state, has been given the crucial finance portfolio.
Joshi takes over a ministry which was handled by his illustrious predecessor late H.N. Ananth Kumar with elan and has big shoes to fill. He is one of the few Union Ministers who has received a Cabinet berth without going through the process of serving as Minister of State- an indication of the trust the BJP leadership has reposed in him.
On the other hand, Sadananda Gowda held the railways and law portfolios before moving to ministry of programme implementation in the previous Modi government. After Ananth Kumar's death, he was given the chemicals and fertilizers portfolio too. He is one of the seniormost ministers in the Union Cabinet and had taken the oath after Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday.
Belagavi MP Suresh Angadi has been assigned the railways portfolio under Cabinet minister Piyush Goyal, in his first stint in the Union Cabinet. The inclusion of the Lingayat leader in the cabinet will go a long way in assuaging the sentiments of the dominant community in Karnataka which has always been a solid vote base of the BJP.
