Gujarati Dinesh Trivedi is new Railway minister with cabinate rank

Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi was Tuesday named India’s new railway minister, a post that had been lying vacant since Mamata Banerjee stepped down in May to take over as the West Bengal chief minister.

Trivedi, who was minister of state for health and family welfare, has now been elevated to cabinet rank and will be administered the oath of office and secrecy at 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to the website of the Prime Minister’s Office .

Trivedi has been made railway minister even as another Trinamool MP, Mukul Roy, who was minister of state for railways, has been made the minister of state for shipping.

More on Trivedi

Dinesh Trivedi, a Gujarati Kutchi industrialist and adviser of Trinamool Congress(TMS) supremo Mamta Banerjee won parliamentary election as a Trinamool candidate from Barrackpore constituency in West Bengal. Trivedi defeated his nearest rival Tarit Topdar, the six-time heavyweight sitting CPM MP, by more than 60,000 votes. A noted industrial belt of West Bengal, Barrackpore is supposedly one of the biggest Left strongholds just outside Kolkata.

The sudden closure of some jute mills and 19 other major industrial units helped Trivedi to magnetise voters towards them. As Barrackpore is an industrial belt, people from various states are staying here. Therefore, a mixed culture is growing. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee placed Dinesh Trivedi in this Lok Sabha seat to woo the non-bengali voters.

Trivedi who hails from Bidada village of coastal Mandvi Taluka in Gujarat’s Kutch district was already a Rajya Sabha member belonging to TMC. Trivedi, a former Congressman is the General Secretary of Trinamool Congress who is said to haveplayed a key role in forging the Congress-TMC alliance. Interestingly Dinesh Trivedi had fought the Lok Sabha election from Kutch in Gujarat as the Congress candidate in 1996 but he suffered defeat by a big margin.

Soon after becoming central minister Trivedi had visited his native place in Kutch where he was honored by the people of Bidada village during the function.