GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Ashwini Vaishnaw’s experience as bureaucrat, entrepreneur and politician will come in handy in managing the big portfolios

- K. SUNIL THOMAS

Contrary to the general assumption, Ashwini Vaishnaw is not from Odisha. The Union cabinet minister in charge of the power-packed portfolios of communications, electronics, IT and railways is from Rajasthan—his family hails from Pali and he grew up in Jodhpur. For all practical purposes, though, he is Odia. He is from the state’s IAS cadre, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from there and he is an ardent follower of Lord Jagannath. In the first five days of his ‘cabinetdom’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new blue-eyed boy sought blessings from the Lord of Puri four times.

Vaishnaw would need more science than spirituality, though, to rise to the task he has been asked to do. The reason Modi chose a low profile insider for the crucial portfolios is not hard to figure out—during his IAS days he was part of Vajpayee’s PMO; he has been a startup entrepreneur and has held corporate positions in the likes of GE and Siemens. The Wharton alumnus’s short tenure in the upper house of Parliament has seen him defending government laws crunching data, and he has often been called in by the PMO for inputs on policy and technology.