Rajasthan Cabinet reshuffle: Fifteen ministers to take oath today
Jaipur(PTI): Fifteen new Rajasthan ministers will take oath at 4 pm on Sunday at the Raj Bhavan here as part of the Cabinet reshuffle, officials said.
The ministers include 11 Cabinet ministers and four ministers of state (MoS). The new Rajasthan cabinet will see 12 new faces, including five from the Sachin Pilot camp, in the reshuffle on Sunday.
This is the first cabinet reshuffle of the Gehlot government which came to power in December 2018.
Three ministers -- Govind Singh Dotasra, Harish Chaudhary and Raghu Sharma -- have been dropped and their resignations have been accepted by the governor on recommendation of the chief minister while three ministers -- Mamta Bhupesh, Tikaram Jully and Bhajan Lal Jatav-- will be elevated from MoS to cabinet rank.
While Dotasra, Chaudhary and Sharma resigned on Friday, other ministers resigned in a meeting of council of ministers on Saturday.
The resignation of Sharma, Chaudhary and Dotasra was accepted as they hold party positions and the "one man, one post" formula has been applied in the state.
Sharma has been appointed as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Gujarat and Chaudhary as the AICC in-charge for Punjab. Dotasra is the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief.
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government will have a total of 30 ministers, including 18 who had resigned earlier.
Rajasthan can have a maximum of 30 ministers including the chief minister.
Three ministers of state -- those have been elevated to cabinet rank -- are from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, party sources said.
The new state cabinet will have four SC members and three ministers from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, the sources said, adding that the cabinet will also feature three women -- a Muslim, one from the SC community and a Gujjar.
Among the new ministers to take oath as cabinet ministers are Hemaram Chaudhary, Mahendrajit Singh Malviya, Ramlal Jat, Mahesh Joshi, Vishvendra Singh, Ramesh Meena, Mamta Bhupesh Bhairwa, Bhajanlal Jatav, Tikaram Juli, Govind Ram Meghwal and Shakuntala Rawat.
Those who will take oath as the new ministers of state are Zahida, Brijendra Singh Ola, Rajendra Durha and Muralilal Meena.
Mahesh Joshi is the government chief whip.
Among those from the Sachin Pilot camp who have been included in the ministry are Vishvendra Singh, Ramesh Meena and Hemaram Chaudhary as cabinet ministers, and Brijendra Ola and Murari Meena as ministers of state.
Two of them -- Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena -- were sacked as cabinet ministers during a political crisis in the state last year.
Another SC member, former MP Govind Ram Meghwal, is a fresh face to be included in the refurbished cabinet.
Rajendra Singh Guda, one of the six MLAs who defected from the BSP to the Congress, has also been included as a minister of state.
No independent MLA has been given a ministerial berth, while some of them would be included as parliamentary secretaries.
Some former BSP legislators would also be included as parliamentary secretaries, the sources said, adding that some senior MLAs would be made advisers to the chief minister.
After the Congress won bypolls held on two assembly seats recently, the tally of the ruling party has reached to 108 in the house of 200.
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Several Indians inducted into Russian Army remain missing: Report
New Delhi: In a concerning development, several Indians who were illegally enlisted in the Russian Army and forcibly sent to the war zone on the Russia-Ukraine border are reportedly still missing.
According to a report published by The Hindu on Sunday, citing communication from the Ministry of External Affairs and statements from the families of two missing men, Mohammad Amin Sheikh, a 65-year-old resident of Kupwara in Tangdhar, Jammu and Kashmir, said that his 27-year-old son, Zahoor Sheikh, last contacted the family on December 31, 2023.
Amin Sheikh mentioned that his son said that he was going for training and would not be available for the next three months on phone. “But when we started getting news about the deaths of Indians in Russia in January, we got worried and called on his number. We could not reach him. We are yet to hear from him,” Sheikh, a retired Inspector from the Public Health Department in Jammu and Kashmir, was quoted as saying by the publication.
Last week, Mohammad Amin Sheikh and his two other sons travelled to New Delhi to seek answers from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Russian Embassy after the Indian Embassy in Moscow failed to give them information about Zahoor Sheikh.
“We submitted a petition at the Russian Embassy,” 31-year-old Aijaz Amin, Zahoor Sheikh’s elder brother, told The Hindu. “They said they are looking into the matter. The MEA officials said that at least 15 Indians are still missing and though the Russian government is cooperative, their commanders on the ground are not responsive,” he added.
Zahoor had travelled to Russia after he came across a YouTube video promising the job of a security helper in Russia. Instead, he was reportedly deceived into joining the Russian Army.
Similarly, 30-year-old Mandeep, from Jalandhar in Punjab, has been missing since March. His brother, Jagdeep Kumar, also arrived in Delhi, looking for answers from the government about his sibling's whereabouts.
“We last spoke on March 3. He initially went to Armenia and was supposed to go to Italy from there in search of work. Instead, he was tricked by an agent to go to Russia and was forced to join the Russian Army. He was sent to the war zone after a few days of training,” Kumar told The Hindu.
Kumar said he met officials from the External Affairs Ministry in the capital city, who told him that at least 25 Indians were reported missing in Russia.
