Member of Parliament from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has retained the Food Processing Ministry.
Harsimrat Kaur won the Lok Sabha elections by an impressive margin, defeating Amrinder Singh Raja Warring of the Congress by a margin of 21,772 votes. This was an improvement from her 2014 tally, where she had won by 19,395 votes.
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Badal was the minister for food processing in the first term of the Narendra Modi government. She has been chosen to represent the Punjab-based party, which is one of the oldest allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party, in the new cabinet.
Badal is a graduate from Delhi University and holds a diploma in textile design.
Harsimrat Kaur had to deal with issues of consumer safety after a controversy erupted over the presence of lead content in Nestle’s Maggi noodles in 2015.
During her campaign, she raised the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Operation Bluestar and the unkept poll promises of the Congress government. She had sternly responded to Congress leader Sam Pitroda’s “hua toh hua” remarks where he had reportedly dismissed the anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination.