Four recently elected BJP MPs from Rajasthan sworn in as Union Ministers

Four recently elected BJP MPs from Rajasthan, including three outgoing Ministers, were sworn in as Union Ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on June 9.

Four recently elected BJP MPs from Rajasthan, including three outgoing Ministers, were sworn in as Union Ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on June 9. While Bhupender Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers, Arjun Ram Meghwal took oath as a Minister of State with independent charge and Bhagirath Choudhary as a Minister of State.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept social engineering in mind while selecting his Ministerial colleagues from the State. Mr. Yadav and Mr. Choudhary (who is a Jat) belong to Other Backward Class (OBC) communities, while Mr. Meghwal is a prominent Dalit face from Bikaner and Mr. Shekhawat comes from the Rajput community.

All four Ministers are from different castes; no MP belonging to the Brahmin community from the State has been included in the Union Cabinet. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma is a Brahmin.

Mr. Shekhawat, elected to the Lok Sabha from Jodhpur for the third consecutive term, was the Union Jal Shakti Minister in the outgoing government. He defeated former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot in 2019 and Congress leader Karan Singh Uchiyarda in 2024. The Congress had accused him of being part of a conspiracy to topple the Ashok Gehlot government in 2020.

Mr. Yadav, who was a Rajya Sabha Member and served as the Forest and Environment Minister in the outgoing government, has been elected to the Lok Sabha from Alwar. Since the Alwar Parliamentary constituency is situated adjacent to Haryana, the BJP may try to influence the Yadav voters through him in the run-up to this year’s Assembly election in that State.

Mr. Meghwal, who had quit the Indian Administrative Service and was elected an MP for the first time in 2009, has secured a fourth consecutive term. He served as the Minister of State for Law and Justice in the outgoing government. He enjoys a clean image and is said to have direct access to Mr. Modi and senior BJP leader Amit Shah.

Mr. Choudhary, elected as a BJP MP for the second consecutive term from Ajmer, is considered close to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. With his appointment as Minister of State, the BJP seems to have made an attempt to mollify Rajasthan’s Jats, who largely voted against the party in the recent elections. He had promoted the BJP’s guarantees and Mr. Modi’s promises among the electorate during his election campaign.