A Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan and BJP’s organization man Bhupender Yadav on Thursday took charge as Minister of Labour and Employment, and Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change.

Rameswar Teli , Minister of State for Labour and Employment also took charge on Thursday.

Yadav, a confidant of Home Minister Amit Shah, assumed charge of the office at noon, a day after he was made a cabinet minister in the Modi government’s first reshuffle in the second term on Wednesday.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary since 2010, Supreme Court advocate Bhupender Yadav’s elevation to the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is seen as a reward for being a dependable organization man.

Eventually, in Wednesday’s cabinet expansion, only one serving MP from Rajasthan, Yadav, got a chance to become a minister who is serving as Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan for the second time.

With Yadav becoming a minister at the Centre, now there are four ministers from Rajasthan. While Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat are cabinet ministers from the desert state, Arjun Meghwal and Kailash Choudhary are ministers of state.

Born in 1969, Yadav has been representing Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha since 2012, but party work keeps taking him to Bihar and Gujarat, the two states under his charge. The BJP is also said to be grooming Yadav as the next face of the community, which has a sizeable presence in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

A hardcore organization man who successfully led the party in Bihar and Gujarat to impressive electoral victories in 2017 and 2020, respectively, Yadav is a trusted aide of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President J.P. Nadda.

The 51-year-old has long been the go-to person for the BJP top brass in handling organization matters and enjoys the image of a non-controversial politician.

Yadav at one point chaired eight select committees and successfully united all parties on many contentious bills. These bills included the GST Bill, Mines and Minerals Bill, and Enemy Property Bill. He also chaired of the Joint Committee on Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015.

(With inputs from IANS)