Rajasthan portfolios: CM Sharma keeps Home, Excise among 8 depts, first timer deputy CM Diya Kumari gets finance

Jaipur: More than a month after the Assembly election results, Rajasthan ministers got their respective departments allotted today with deputy chief minister Diya Kumari getting one of the most important portfolios-that of finance. Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma kept the other important department Home under himself.

It would be probably the first time that a deputy chief minister has been given the coveted finance department. Usually former chief ministers-both BJP’s Vasundhara Raje and Congress’ Ashok Gehlot have handled the finance department themselves. Pradyuman Singh, however, was the finance minister during Gehlot’s first tenure from 1998 to 2003.

CM Bhajanlal Sharma has kept eight departments with himself including Home, Excise and Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Deputy chief minister Diya Kumari has been given six departments including finance and tourism, which are very significant in the context of Rajasthan. She has also been given the charge of women and child development, culture, art, and archaeology departments. Dr Manju Bagmar, the only other woman minister in a total of 22 ministers, would work in the department of Women and Child Development as a state minister and would directly work under Diya Kumari.

Looking at his Phd background, the other deputy CM, Prem Chand Bairwa, has been made incharge of higher education, technical education department and road transport and highways too.

Former Lok Sabha MP and Olympian Rajyavardhan Rathore, now MLA from Jaipur’s Jhotwara region besides handling the Sports ministry and youth affairs, has also been given the important portfolio of Industry and Commerce.

Former Rajya Sabha MP and one of Meena community’s tallest leaders Kirori Lal Meena has been given the department of agriculture and rural development.

Madan Dilawar, with strong RSS links, has been given the school education department, which may see many changes in the school books.

Raje’s confidant Gajendra Singh Khimswar has also been the important department of health.

Most of the ministers are first timers including CM and his two deputy chief ministers. Without much administrative and governance experience, they would probably be aided by experts from Delhi and by an able bureaucracy, Narayan Bareth, a political analyst, told Deccan Herald.

About Diya Kumari handling the finance portfolio, Bareth says, “May be because Diya Kumari has more experience than CM. She has been an MP and MLA before.”