VAISHNAW A MINISTER FOR ALL SEASONS & REASONS

As every Indian political traveller knows, the bullet train of success whizzes through the hallowed terminals of Harvard and Wharton.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

The whiz kid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's transition from titled technocrat to multi-tiered mantri could be a case study for Ivy League business schools. The 54-year-old bureaucratturned-politician's mastery over political and administrative management has seen him retained as the 39th railway minister, 35th information and broadcasting minister since independ‐ ence, and the second minister of electronics and IT since 2016. He is a twoterm Rajya Sabha member from Odisha representing the BJP since 2019. His transformation from a bureaucrat in a suit and a tie to a politician in a white cotton pyjama and a light-coloured kurta is a saga of enviable success in contemporary politics.

Delhi durbaris found their chins hitting the floor earlier this month when Modi made him railway and IT minister once again, because, except for the last decade of BJP dominance, the post of railway minister has mostly belonged to an ally in an NDA government since 1996. But Modi knows the importance of Vaishnaw. He is playing tenor to Environment Minister Bhupinder Yadav's bass, in charge of the Maharashtra assembly election orchestra.

Vaishnaw is a paradox in popular politics since he is the only BJP Upper House MP who has been elected twice not by his party but by the munificence of Naveen Patnaik of the BJD, which it recently trounced. He has the distinction of being the first newly-distilled politician who entered the Rajya Sabha after Modi and Amit Shah spoke to Patnaik on his behalf, first in June 2019 and then in 2024.

Vaishnaw had worked in the state for less than a decade as an IAS officer, and his data collection role for the 1999 super cyclone was more than a storm in a teacup.

From 2003, he worked with Atal Bihari Vajpayee both in the PMO and after the former PM's retirement. Modi sees the ministries of railway and IT as his best engines for Destination Viksit Bharat.