(NDTV)
Rajya Sabha member and BJP candidate from Odisha Dharmendra Pradhan will have an expanded role in the new Modi government with the former Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister retaining this key Ministry while given additional charge of the Steel Ministry.
Mr Pradhan, known as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s face in Odisha also held the portfolio of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the last government. While skill development has been given a new face, Mr Pradhan has been given additional responsibility of the steel sector that requires special nurturing from the new minister given sluggish market conditions and an onslaught of cheap steel imports.
Dharmendra Pradhan, 50, is serving his second consecutive term in the Rajya Sabha to which he was first elected in 2010. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Deogarh, Odisha in 2004. Considered the party’s chief ministerial candidate at one time, Mr Pradhan had steered one of the Modi government’s most talked about schemes Pradhan Mantri Ujjawla Yojana, an initiative to provide free cooking gas connection to poor women. The scheme was able to increase the LPG customer base by two-fold, to 26 crore in five-years time and is widely believed to have bore rich dividends to the BJP in the 2019 elections.
