Odisha: Rajya Sabha member Ashwini Vaishnaw may become minister at the Centre

BHUBANESWAR: Rajya Sabha member Ashwini Vaishnaw is likely to get a ministerial berth after the next rejig of the council of ministers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon, BJP insiders said.
While many of the saffron party’s Lok Sabha MPs from the state are aspiring for a place in the ministry, the Odisha-cadre IAS officer-turned corporate employee-turned entrepreneur has emerged as a top contender given his vast experience in both the public and private sectors.
The 1994-batch officer had earlier served as a deputy secretary in the PMO of Atal Bihari Vajpayee where he had contributed in public-private-partnership policy making for infrastructure projects.
After Vajpayee demoted the PM’s office, he had also served as his private secretary. Currently, he is associated with many key initiatives of the Modi government, but as a back-room boy.
If Vaishnaw makes it to the ministry, the development would be seen as dramatic for many in Odisha just like his entry to the Rajya Sabha last year. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had first announced his name as a BJD candidate, but had later backed him as a BJP nominee.
Though the ruling BJD had the numbers to send one from the party, it had conceded a seat to the BJP — the principal opposition in the state — cementing Vaishnaw’s place in the upper house.
The BJP has eight Lok Sabha members from Odisha, while Vaishnaw is the lone Rajya Sabha MP from the state. Of the two Union ministers from Odisha,Dharmendra Pradhan is an RS member from Madhya Pradesh while Pratap Chandra Sarangi represents Balasore in the lower house.
Born in 1970 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Vaishnaw has an excellent academic track record.
He is a gold medallist in BE (electronics and telecommunications) from the University of Jodhpur (now Jai Narain Vyas University) and has done M Tech in industrial management from IIT Kanpur. He also holds an MBA (finance and strategy) from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
He had served as the district collector of Balasore and Cuttack before moving to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
After quitting civil services, he had joined the corporate sector and worked as the MD of GE Transportation for South Asia and then as the head of urban infrastructure strategy in Siemens.
In 2017, Vaishnaw had worked with some other entrepreneurs to acquire an iron-oxide pellet-making unit in Odisha and ensured its turnaround in a few months.