He was once competing with Donald Trump for the Republican Party's nomination for this year's presidential election but couldn't be successful. But now, the same Trump who went to become the president-elect of the United States, has nominated Ben Carson to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The nomination of the retired neurosurgeon has never held any political post has surprised a lot of people but that's how the era of Trump has been unfolding - with little regard for what the traditionalists believe.

On Monday (December 5), Trump said in a statement that he was thrilled to nominate Carson, 65, as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities," the president-elect added.

Carson, on his part, said: "I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration."

However, Carson himself was not comfortable initially with the call to give him a Cabinet role, saying as a federal bureaucrat, he would be "like a fish out of water", reported Washington Post. The conservative celebrity and a popular writer, who became close to Trump after quitting the presidential race, later accepted the offer but the entire episode has added more firepower to the Opposition's arsenal.

The Democrats slammed Trump's pick suspecting Carson's capacity to take over an agency worth $48 billion that looks after the issue of public housing.

Reports also said that Carson's political stand on the housing policy shows that he is against some of the anti-segregation policies that have been backed by minority groups. He has also criticized the Barack Obama administration over its efforts towards bettering racial integration in the housing sector.

"These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse," Carson had written in an op-ed for Washington Times last year.