Actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani has been removed from her position of Information and Broadcast Minister on Monday Evening. After depriving the minister of the high profile portfolio, Junior Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has been elevated as the new Minister of State with independent charge of I&B Ministry.
This change is a part of a cabinet shuffle effected by PM Modi. Besides, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has been assigned the Ministry of Finance till Arun Jaitley fully recovers from his ailment after the kidney transplant.
It’s not the first time that Irani has lost a high profile portfolio. Back in May 2014, she was appointed as the Human Resource and Development Minister but was replaced by Prakash Javedkar in around 2 years. After this, she was handed over the Ministry of Textiles and she remained away from the limelight.
Later, in July 2017, Smriti Irani replaced Venkaiah Naidu as the I&B Minister when the latter was elected as the Vice President of India. However, in less than a year, Irani got involved in a series of controversy including the fight with Prasar Bharti Road, the issue of fake news notification and the latest row involving the National Award Ceremony.
The National Award Ceremony controversy eventually became a matter of embarrassment for the centre. Around 55 awardees boycotted the ceremony when they came to know that the President will only present 11 awards while the rest will be given away by the I&B Ministry.
Apparently, I&B Ministry blamed the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the last-minute change in the program and the President’s House had to clarify that there was no “eleventh-hour” change and it has always been the protocol of the President since the beginning of his term that he only attends a function for 1 hour.
