New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Chhaganbhai Patel, Leader of House in the Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal and several Union ministers, including Nirmala Sitharaman, Anurag Thakur and Kiren Rijiju, called on Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday.
They met the vice-president separately.
The Vice-President’s Secretariat tweeted photos of their meetings with Naidu.
In a recent rejig of the Union Council of Ministers, various new ministers took oath, the portfolios of some were changed and some were elevated as cabinet ministers.
Saturday’s meetings with Naidu were described as courtesy calls after the cabinet expansion.
The meetings also come ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament that starts on Monday. Naidu is also the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha.
Union minister Goyal was recently named the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha in place of Thaawarchand Gehlot, who has been appointed as the governor of Karnataka.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, along with both MoS Finance, Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad and Pankaj Chaowdhary, called on Naidu.
The others who met the vice-president included Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Environment and Labour Minister Bhupeder Yadav, Health, and Chemical and Fertilisers Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
Mandaviya wrote on Twitter that he discussed various issues with Naidu and received his guidance.
According to the Vice-President’s Secretariat, Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, Information and Broadcasting and Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Parshottam Rupala, along with L Murugan, MoS, Information and Broadcasting, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, also called on Naidu.
“I called on the Hon’ble Vice President, Shri M Venkaiah Naidu Ji at Upa-Rashtrapati Nivas today. Respected M Venkaiah Naidu Ji is a mentor for all of us and we have been guided by wisdom, experience and knowledge,” Rijiju wrote on Twitter.
Power, and New and Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar also called on the vice-president, besides Narayan Rane, Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), andP Singh, Minister of Steel.
Scindia also tweeted about the courtesy meet and said he received the blessings of Naidu.