Will continue policies of previous sports minister: Kiren Rijiju

Mr Rijiju became the fifth sports minister in the Modi government's two terms. In the first tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sarbananda Sonowal, Vijay Goyal, Jitendra Singh and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathod headed the ministry for brief periods of time.

In the Modi Cabinet 2.0, Mr Rijiju has been given the charge. He was the minister of state for home in the previous government.

Rijiju said: "Previous sports minster is my friend and we have worked together. I will try to continue his polices and also add new policies into it. We will work as a team."

When asked about the next year's Tokyo Olympics, the new sports minister said, "Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world. Apart from that, we will also be looking at Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. After discussing the matters with my officials, we will prepare our policies for the Olympics."

Commenting on his priorities, Mr Rijiju said: "In sports, it is believed that one should play sports with sportsmanship. I will practice the same in my ministry. Even when I was in the home ministry, I had given answers on sports-related issues in Parliament, in the absence of the then sports minister.

''I was already connected with the sports and feel good that I got an opportunity to serve the youth of the country," he added.

Speaking about the Indian cricket team playing in the World Cup in England, he said: "Whoever is playing for India at the international level. our greetings are with him."

When asked about having the fifth sports minister in the last six years, he said: "A person can be replaced, but policies should not be changed."