Harsh Vardhan gets Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in PM Modi’s new Cabinet

india

Updated: May 31, 2019 15:22 IST

Harsh Vardhan was given the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences in PM Modi’s new Cabinet.

He is a two-time member of Parliament from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency, and defeated Congress’s J P Agarwal by over 200,000 votes this time.

An ENT surgeon by profession, the 64-year-old started his political career from Delhi when he was first elected MLA from Krishna Nagar in 1993.

He won consecutive assembly elections between 1993 and 2013 and headed the BJP’s Delhi unit twice. After his victory from Chandni Chowk in 2014, he was inducted in the Modi cabinet and given the high-profile health ministry.

But months later, he was moved to the science and technology ministry.

In 2017, he was given additional charge of the environment, forest and climate change ministry. It was during his tenure as environment minister that the national clean air programme was formulated. He was also Delhi’s first health minister and is credited for the successful implementation of the pilot project of Pulse Polio programme in 1994 .