Modi Cabinet 2024: The 30 Cabinet ministers sworn in as members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's latest Council of Ministers on Sunday have now been assigned their portfolios. Hailing from Jharkhand, BJP leader Annapurna Devi has been assigned the Women and Child Development portfolio. She succeeds BJP bigwig Smriti Irani, who was defeated by Congress's KL Sharma from Amethi in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, as the Union Minister of Women and Child Development.
Once a close aide of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, Devi joined the BJP ahead of the 2019 general election. This time, she retained her position as the Lok Sabha representative of the Kodarma seat in Jharkhand by defeating CPI(ML)L candidate Vinod Kumar Singh by a margin of 3.77 lakh votes.
Modi 3.0 Cabinet: Who Is Annapurna Devi?
- Annapurna Devi, the newly appointed Union Minister of Women and Child Development, started her political career with election to the Bihar Assembly in 1998 through a by-poll.
- She went on to serve as the minister of state for Mines and Geology in the RJD government of undivided Bihar.
- Devi served as an MLA in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly between 2005 and 2014.
- She was appointed as a Cabinet minister in the Jharkhand government in 2012.
- Devi is considered an influential OBC figure within and beyond the mica belt of Koderma, news agency PTI said in a report.
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- In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Devi secured victory on the Kodarma seat by defeating BJP's now Jharkhand unit president and the state's first CM Babulal Marandi while contesting on a ticket from the saffron party. Marandi was contesting as a candidate of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajtantrik), which he later merged with the BJP.
- In 2021, Devi was inducted into the PM Modi-led second NDA government as the minister of state for Education.
(With inputs from agencies)