Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Health Ministry rose to the stature of the Big Four (Defence, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Home) and the elevation of Mansukh Mandaviya as India’s Health Minister from his relatively insignificant position as Minister of State in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers (MCF) is an indication of the confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he enjoys.

The massive Cabinet reshuffle that Modi effected on Wednesday also saw him upstaging his own senior colleague D V Sadananda Gowda to be the MCF Minister.

This major restructuring is a face-saving attempt by the current government which drew flak from the masses for not being prepared for the ensuing second wave, when the country had already suffered a jolt in the first wave. During the second wave when the cases were at peak around May, there was a complete mayhem in the health sector, when people couldn’t find beds for their near and dear ones, essential life-saving drugs and medical equipment like oxygen cylinders were in acute shortage. Reports of black marketing of Remdesivir injections and oxygen concentrators used in the treatment of Covid 19 disease made headlines and many healthcare workers were attacked for not being able to accommodate the Covid patients.

Clubbing ministries

In the latest move, the Prime Minister not only removed the then Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, but also merged it with the MCF. With the clubbing of both these ministries, the government is envisaging a better management of supply of medicines, other medical equipment like oxygen cylinders and hospital beds if again the pandemic hits the country at the same scale as it was seen recently.

The government is undoubtedly pinning its hopes on him to manage the pandemic in a more calibrated manner.

Speaking about Mandaviya, like PM Modi, he also had a humble beginning. Born in a middle-class farmer family in a village called Hanol in the Bhavnagar district in Gujarat, he studied veterinary science at the Gujarat Agricultural University’s Dantiwada campus and later completed his Masters in Political Science from Bhavnagar University.

His political career began in 2002 where he fought the Palitana Constituency and became the youngest MLA in Gujarat. In the year 2004, he had also organised a 123 km long Padyatra, titled “Kanya Kelavani Jyot Padyatra” for the social cause ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’ where he covered 45 educationally backward villages of his constituency. Then again in 2006 he organised a 127 km “Padyatra” connecting 52 villages of his constituency with the title “Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao, Vyasan Hatao.

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