Smriti Irani misses ceremony of Javadekar taking charge of HRD ministry

Prakash Javadekar on Thursday took charge of the high-profile Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry in the absence of his predecessor Smriti Irani, who was shifted to the Union Textile Ministry during a Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.

Irani’s absence raised eyebrows as the tradition has been that the outgoing minister of the same party or alliance usually hands over the charge to his or her successor in the ministry. When asked about her absence, Javadekar said she could not come because of “family reasons”.

Javadekar, who didn’t take charge of the HRD ministry on the first day for undisclosed reasons, had met Irani at the latter’s residence on Wednesday. On Thursday, Javadekar was flanked by both his deputies and ministers of state — Upendra Kushwaha and Mahendra Nath Pandey — when he took charge on the third floor office of Shastri Bhawan.

The newly-promoted Cabinet minister said his main focus will be on imparting quality education to the poor. Though he refused to answer questions on his ministry’s policies in the absence of a background briefing, officials in the ministry said his bigger challenge will be to get all the stakeholders to agree on the Draft Education Policy and improve relations with the Prime Minister’s Office on the issue of greater autonomy to colleges.

Finding suitable candidates for vacancies in key institutions such as the Central Board of Secondary Education and the Indian Institute of Management will be another immediate task before the new minister.