Piyush Goyal, Union Minister is the next Leader of House in Rajya Sabha. He replaced Thaawarchand Gehlot, who was last week appointed as Karnataka’s new Governor.
Mr.Goyal is recently appointed as House Leader just before the monsoon season. He has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2010. In the last reshuffling, Mr.Goyal is in charge of the Textiles ministry. The ministry was earlier led by Union Minister Smriti Irani.
Smriti Irani is now heading the Women and Child Development Ministry. Mr.Goyal’s Railway ministry is now being headed by Ashwini Vaishnaw new minister of Rajya Sabha from Odisha.
Mr.Piyush Goyal has handled the commerce and industry, consumer affairs, and food and public distributions ministries. During his tenure in the Ministry of Railways, Indian Railways has seen the least number of accidents. Official websites state that Indian Railways had achieved the best-ever safety record in 2018-19.
PM Modi is happy with Mr.Goyal and he believes him as a good ‘performer’ & ‘doer’. According to sources he had missed the opportunity to be Finance Minister. Mr.Goyal had also held the portfolio of Arun Jaitley when he was sick.
The formation of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs did not include Piyush Goyal. Though as the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha should be a part of the committee.
Now it is expected that he might get a role in the BJP Parliamentary board. It is the party’s highest decision-making organization with a strong structure. Many ministers showered him with compliments and wishes for becoming Upper House Leader.
The Congress was considered to replace Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. But as per party sources, they denied the rumor, saying that there will be no leadership change.
