Bharatiya Janata Party's MP Annapurna Devi from Koderma was inducted in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers on Wednesday and took oath as union minister at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Centre has given the MP to hold the charge as Minister of State in the Ministry of Education.
Earlier there was discussion that Chandraprakash Chaudhary can be made a minister in the center from AJSU quota. AJSU supremo Sudesh Mahto also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi regarding this. But now with Annapurna Devi taking oath, all possibilities are over.
Appointment of Devi, who belongs to the OBC (other backward classes) category , in the Union cabinet from the state is significant, as she is a first time Member of Parliament and also a new entrant into the BJP. Devi, the then Jharkhand president of Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), joined the BJP just ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Annapurna Devi's political journey
She was elected to the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, from Kodarma (Vidhan Sabha constituency) as a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
She was elected to the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India from Kodarma, Jharkhand in the 2019 Indian general election as member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
After winning the Lok Sabha elections, she was first made the Deputy Speaker of Jharkhand State. After that she was also made the National Vice President of BJP and co-in-charge of Haryana.
Devi is the second Lok Sabha member from the state to have joined the Union cabinet after tribal affairs minister Arjun Munda. Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is also a member of Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand.
An RJD veteran who represented Koderma assembly seat in four occasions, Devi was also a minister in the Hemant Soren government in 2013.
