Almost a fortnight after Home Minister Amit Shah took charge, he allocated work to the two junior Ministers in North Block. While the management of other departments has been distributed among the two Ministers of State, Mr. Shah will hold charge of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) himself. Former Home Minister Rajnath Singh also had IB report directly to him.
The distribution of work comes at a time when Mr. Shah is expected to undertake his first official visit as a Home Minister to Jammu and Kashmir to oversee the preparations and security arrangements for the Amarnath Yatra that commences on July 1.
The two Ministers of State, Nityanand Rai and G. Kishan Reddy, did not have defined roles till now. The order was issued late Tuesday night.
Mr. Shah is known to put in long hours in the office. The three Ministers took charge on June 1.
As per the new set of responsibilities, Mr. Rai will look after the Left-wing Extremism division, Centre-State relations, border management, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and the Foreigners Division.
The Jammu and Kashmir desk and Northeast have been allocated to Mr. Reddy. This is the first time that J&K and Northeast divisions have been allocated to the same Minister. In the previous Cabinet, the Northeast division was handled by Kiren Rijiju and Kashmir desk was with the other Minister of State, Hansraj Gangaram Ahir.
In all, there are 22 divisions in the Home Ministry.
Both Mr. Rai and Mr. Reddy were State presidents of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in Bihar and Telangana respectively.
During the Lok Sabha election, they reported to Mr. Shah, who is the BJP president. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked all Cabinet Ministers to delegate more work to Ministers of State and involve them in decision-making.
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