The current sports minister of India is Mansukh Mandaviya, who was the union health minister in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government announced on Monday that Mansukh Mandaviya, the union health minister at the COVID-19 pandemic's peak in 2021, will succeed Anurag Thakur as India's next sports minister. The closest Congress rival, 52-year-old Mandaviya, defeated him by a margin of 3.83 lakh votes to win the Gujarat Lok Sabha seat in Porbandar. Mandaviya was also given concurrent charge of the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers in the newly unveiled cabinet on Monday. In addition, Raksha Khadse, a three-time Maharashtra BJP MP from Raver, was named Minister of State (Sports) under Mandaviya.
Raksha is a 37-year-old NCP leader from the Sharad Pawar group whose daughter-in-law, Eknath Khadse, has chosen to rejoin the BJP.
She defeated her closest opponent, Shriram Patil of the NCP-Sharad Pawar faction, in the 2024 Lok Sabha election with around 3 lakh votes.
Nikhil Khadse, her spouse, passed away in 2013.
In the middle of 2021, when the nation was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, Mandaviya was given the responsibility for the health portfolio. He had taken Dr. Harsh Vardhan's place at the time, when the latter was removed from the Council of Ministers as part of a reorganization.
Mandaviya's ministry was subsequently assigned to supervise the immunization program and increase the oxygen and medication supplies during the severe COVID-19 second wave. J P Nadda was appointed as the new minister of health in the sworn-in cabinet.
Mandaviya held its first Lok Sabha election, which has just finished. On June 1, 1972, he was born in Bhavnagar.
He had been elected as an MLA from the Palitana assembly constituency in the Bhavnagar district in 2002 before he was nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
Thirty-seven ministers were dismissed from the third successive Modi ministry, including the departing Thakur. After almost three years as the sports minister, Thakur assumed the position on July 7, 2021.
Just a few weeks after replacing Kiren Rijiju as minister after a cabinet upheaval, he led India to its best-ever performance in the Olympics, taking home a record seven medals from the Tokyo Games.
Additionally, under his leadership, the government revised its eligibility standards to allow medal winners in all Khelo India championships to apply for government posts.
In March, Thakur stated that this action was in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "vision of a robust sports ecosystem, nurturing talent at grassroots level and turning sports into a lucrative and viable career option." India also began putting out a pitch to make an aggressive bid to host the Olympic Games in 2036 for the first time ever during Thakur's time as the minister of sports.
Though certain that India will win the right to host, Thakur has long insisted that the government's flagship Khelo India initiative, which was introduced in 2017 and receives the majority of funding, deserves some of the credit for the nation's increasing athletic performances.
Thakur, who entered politics in 2008 and has served five terms as a representative for Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur constituency, also predicted that the nation will rank among the top five medal-winning nations in the world in the near future.
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