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New Delhi : PM Narendra Modi on September 3, 2017, revamped his cabinet by inducting nine new faces as Minister of State and promoting four Minister of State to the cabinet rank. Ministers of State Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were aappointed Cabinet ministers. Two BJP MPs from Bihar : Ashwini Kumar Chaubey and R K Singh, were among the nine new faces appointed as Minister of State. They were administered oath of office by President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Chaubey, who represented Bhagalpur assembly constituency in Bihar Assembly five times starting in 1995, was Cabinet minister in NDA government headed by Nitish Kumar for eight years till May 2013. Chaubey is a BJP MP from Buxar and is a former President of Patna University Students Union. Raj Kumar Singh, a retired IAS officer of 1975 batch, is a former Union Home Secretary. He was elected MP from Ara parliamentary constituency in 2014.
The other seven Minister of State are : Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Anantkumar Hegde, Hardeep Singh Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Satya Pal Singh and Alphons Kannanthanam. Hardeep Singh Puri is a retired Indian Foreign Service Officer (IFS) while Satyapal Singh is a retired IPS officer and BJP MP from Baghpat in UP. Satyapal Singh is former Police Commissioner of Mumbai. Kannanthanam is a retired IAS officer. Hegde is a five term MP from Karnataka while Virendra Kumar is a six term MP from Madhya Pradesh.