BJP's Koderma MP Annapurna Devi was inducted in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers on Wednesday evening when the full list of new inductees was announced officially.
Devi is among the 43 fresh faces who have been shortlisted for the oath-taking ceremony in the evening.
A close aide of Devi, who is currently in Delhi along with her, said, “Maam had come to Delhi in the morning after being summoned suddenly. She is among the 43 who will take oath today. But till the time final ceremony is over, fingers crossed.”
Two MPs from Jharkhand--Arjun Munda (Khunti) and Mukthar Abbas Naqvi (Rajya Sabha) _ are already Union ministers, handling tribal and minority affairs respectively.
Devi, who is currently national vice-president of BJP, was a part of the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal until the 2019 parliamentary elections. She was also state president of RJD in Jharkhand and was to contest from Koderma on a party ticket. However, she quit RJD and joined the BJP before the elections.
The saffron camp pitched Devi from the Koderma seat to take on Babulal Marandi, who was then the chief of JVM-P, which now stands defunct after the latter’s merger with the BJP.
The party’s gamble on Devi, a prominent Yadav face, worked as she trounced Marandi by a margin of over 4 lakh votes. After the death of her husband, Ramesh Prasad Yadav, a minister in the Rabri Devi cabinet, Devi took to politics in 1998. Since then, Devi has been a four-time MLA from Koderma. In the 2014 Assembly polls, she, however, lost to the BJP’s Neera Yadav .