Former Chief Minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi is the new MSME Minister under the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Dalit face of NDA, Manjhi, 79, and the leader of the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) was Bihar CM between 2014 and 2015 for a short period of 10 months.
Manjhi won the Gaya seat in Bihar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by 101812 votes against Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Kumar Sarvjeet. After meeting Home Minister Amit Shah in February this year, Manjhi had announced support to the NDA led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Manjji was born in Khijrasarai, Gaya and became an MLA from the Congress party back in 1980 and a minister in 1985. He moved to the Janata Dal later and then to the RJD. Manji became the minister in the Nitish Kumar government in 2015.
He will replace Narayan Rane who became the MSME Minister in July 2021 during the first major cabinet reshuffle in the second term of PM Modi. The MSME Ministry portfolio was earlier held by Nitin Gadkari.
On the other hand, the Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare in the second term of the Modi government Shobha Karandlaje is the new Minister of State (Mos) in the Ministry of MSME and also the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Under Modi 2.0, the MoS in the MSME Ministry was Bhanu Pratap Verma who took charge alongside Rane in July 2021.
Karandlaje was earlier also a member of the Standing Committee on Energy, Committee on Empowerment of Women and the Consultative Committee under the Ministry of Women and Child Development in the 17th Lok Sabha.
Born in the small village Charvaka near Puttur in Karnataka in October 1966, Karandlaje did her graduation in BA from St. Philomena College Puttur and Masters in Social Work at Mangalore University and another in Sociology at Mysuru University.
