Jyotiraditya Scindia is India's new civil aviation minister, follows in father's footsteps

Jyotiraditya Scindia, the BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh, has been given the charge of Civil Aviation Ministry of India. Scindia is among the prominent new faces that have been inducted into the Modi cabinet in today's major overhaul.

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Jyotiraditya Scindia is India's new civil aviation minister, follows in father's footsteps
BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia. (File PTI photo)

Following his father Madhavrao Scindia's footsteps, BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh Jyotiraditya Scindia has been appointed as the new civil aviation minister. Madhavrao Scindia, too, held the civil aviation portfolio under the PV Narasimha Rao-led central government between 1991 and 1993.

Scindia is among the prominent new faces that have been inducted into the Modi Cabinet in today's major overhaul.

Sources say Jyotiraditya Scindia was given the Civil Aviation Ministry as the top BJP leadership believes that the civil aviation sector needs a young, fresh, dynamic face that can take forward the needs of the country in the context of 'New India'.

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"Jyotiraditya Scindia will bring in new energy and new ides to make this sector dynamic and keep up pace with the changing post-Covid world," a source said.

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Scindia, a Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, switched from Congress to the BJP on March 11 last year. The 50-year-old leader was Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and Union Minister of State for Commerce & Communications in the earlier UPA government.

Jyotiraditya Scindia is among 36 new faces that have been inducted into the Modi Cabinet.

This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by PM Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.

An extensive and protracted review was carried out by PM Modi and the BJP top brass through a series of meetings with ministers ahead of Wednesday's big exercise.

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Born on January 1, 1971, and educated in Harvard and Stanford institutions, Scindia has traversed a long way after contesting his maiden election as a Congress candidate in 2002, a bypoll in the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which was held because of the sudden death of his father, Madhavrao Scindia, in a plane crash.

In 2007, he was inducted into the UPA government and remained a part of the Union Cabinet till 2014 by serving as a minister of state for communications, commerce and industry and power.

In 2014, he was again elected from Guna, his traditional seat for a fourth time but lost from the constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to BJP candidate KP Yadav, who was once close to him.

(With PTI inputs)

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