Amit Shah debuts as Cabinet minister

BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday was sworn-in as a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi government.

Shah was the third in line, after Modi and Rajnath Singh, to take the oath, administered by President Ram Nath Kovind.

Portfolios of the new council of ministers are yet to be announced.

Speculation over Shah getting a cabinet berth was rife ever since the resounding victory of the BJP and its allies in the Lok Sabha elections. From a party worker to a cabinet minister, Shah has had a meteoric rise in the BJP.

Born in Mumbai in 1964, he was brought up at his paternal village in Maansa, Gujarat till the age of 16.

According to his website, as a young boy, he was always inspired by the stories of the great patriots of the nation and dreamt of working for the progress of the motherland.

He was especially inspired and influenced by the nationalist spirit and vision of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and became its active member in Ahmedabad, it says.

Shah worked for Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of RSS for some time before he joined BJP in 1984-85. There, Shah was noted for his organisational skills and was appointed the national treasurer of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and subsequently the state secretary and state vice-president of the party in Gujarat.

With his excellent election management expertise, Shah managed the campaign of BJP stalwart Lal Krishna Advani's election from Ahmedabad constituency in 1989.

During these years, Shah came in contact with Narendra Modi- then a rising star in the BJP.

He and Narendra Modi, who was then an organisational secretary of the party in Gujarat, helped BJP mobilise its workers, which bore fruitful results for the party in subsequent elections.

BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1995. However, its government fell in 1997. According to the BJP president's website, Shah successfully contested the Assembly Elections from Sarkhej that followed the BJP government's fall.

BJP returned to power in the state with Narendra Modi as its Chief Minister in 2002. Shah handled several key portfolios in the state government including the Home Ministry.

Shah took over as the BJP president soon after NDA emerged victorious in 2014 general elections. A trusted lieutenant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was appointed party in-charge of Uttar Pradesh just ahead of the 2014 national elections.

With his sharp political acumen, Shah helped the party and its allies win 73 out of 80 seats in the state leading PM Modi to proclaim him as "man-of-the-match" of BJP's victory.

Indeed, as the captain of the winning team, Shah deserves credit for turning the party into an election-winning machine. With one Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu-Kashmir, Assam, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, his record as the BJP president has been unmatchable.

It is 2019 now and the BJP led by Shah has scripting history by becoming the first party in India, since 1971, to return with full majority.