Cabinet 2.0: All you need to know about Ashwini Vaishnaw, the new Railways and IT Minister

The BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha is a former IAS officer of the 1994 batch

Two years ago, BJD could have blocked Ashwani Vaishnaw's entry into Rajya Sabha as it had the numbers to get its nominee elected but party supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik chose otherwise and responded positively to requests by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

Patnaik, who surprises his political allies and opponents all the time, gave his nod for the unopposed election of BJP's bureaucrat-turned-technocrat-turned-politician candidate and the rest is history.

Two years later, Modi gave an early birthday gift to the 51-year-old electronics engineer, who quit IAS to earn an MBA degree from Wharton University before turning an entrepreneur, to steer two crucial ministries -- Railways, which has domestic implications, Communications and Information and Technology that creates not ripples but waves in the country as well as internationally.

Vaishnaw will turn 51 on July 18.

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Vaishnaw, who took charge of the ministries on Thursday, replaced dropped veteran BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad in Communication and Information and Technology ministries, and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in Railways. One of the main tasks for Vaishnaw will be to bring normalcy in the relationship between the government and social media giants while not giving much leeway to the latter.

He wears his loyalty to Modi on his sleeves. When one opens his personal website, the first thing that greets you is a link to joining BJP as well as 'About BJP' and 'About Shri Narendra Modi', which leads to their websites, besides providing a link to Shah's website too.

At the height of the Modi government facing criticism over the handling of the economy, Vaishnaw also defended the BJP vociferously in Parliament saying that the economic slowdown is cyclical in nature and not structural. Modi and Shaw had first got to know about Vaishnaw when he left the corporate world in 2012 to start two auto related companies -- Three Tee Auto Logistics and Gee Auto Components -- in Gujarat.

However, those who know Vaishnaw are not surprised at his choice as a Cabinet Minister, as they believe that he is an "excellent and brilliant" person who could add value to Modi's revamped team.

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One who entered the civil services at the age of 24 before bagging a gold medal in BTech (Electronics and Communication) and then MTech from IIT Kanpur, the then Odisha cadre officer shot to fame for his work during the Super Cyclone in 1999.

Vaishnaw, who was also the Collector of Balasore and Cuttack, regularly monitored the US Navy website to understand the development of the cyclone and informed the Chief Secretary's office helping them to design the relief work. He was also credited for his work in formulating the Public Private Participation framework for the infrastructure sector.

In 2003, he moved to the Centre to serve as a Deputy Secretary in A B Vajpayee's PMO. He later became the former Prime Minister's Private Secretary after the BJP lost the 2004 Lok Sabha polls and two years later, he was Deputy Chairman of Mormugao Port Trust where he worked till 2008 before moving to Wharton for his MBA.

He quit civil services soon and joined the corporate sector -- became Managing Director in GE Transportation and Vice President in Siemens Locomotives before quitting to turn entrepreneur and later to enter politics.