19 new faces inducted into Modi’s council of ministers.
19 new faces inducted into Modi’s council of ministers.
In a major change of portfolios, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday shunted out the high-profile Smriti Irani from the human resources development ministry to the low-key textiles ministry. She has been replaced by Prakash Javadekar, who has been elevated to Cabinet rank. The expansion and reshuffle of the Union Cabinet also saw Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s additional portfolio of information and broadcasting given to Union urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu to hold as an extra charge. Nineteen new faces were inducted into the council of ministers on Tuesday morning.
Mr Naidu retained the urban development ministry but lost parliamentary affairs (which entails floor management with Opposition leaders on significant legislation in Parliament) to chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar.
Mr Javadekar’s place in the environment ministry was taken by BJP Rajya Sabha MP Anil Dave who is now minister of state with independent charge of the sensitive ministry.
Steel and mines minister Narendra Tomar has been rewarded with the rural development ministry, the main driver of Mr Modi’s social agenda. His steel portfolio has gone to Birender Singh, who till now was rural development minister. Piyush Goyal, who is already MoS with independent charge of the power, coal and new and renewable energy ministries, has been given the mines department as well.
The reshuffle also saw D.V. Sadananda Gowda relieved of the law and justice portfolio and sent to the dry statistics and programme implementation ministry. Ravi Shankar Prasad is the new law minister and retains his portfolio of electronics and information technology. However, Manoj Sinha, currently MoS, railways, has been given independent charge of Mr Prasad’s communications department.
With an eye on poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Mr Modi retained micro, small and medium enterprises minister Kalraj Mishra and minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah, despite both ministers having crossed the Modi dispensation’s unwritten age bar of 75 years.
MoS Jayant Sinha has been shifted from finance to civil aviation, a post held by Mahesh Sharma who will now look after only culture and tourism as MoS.
The shifting of Ms Irani, whose two-year tenure in the HRD ministry was marked by controversies over dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide in Hyderabad and the JNU row, triggered speculation on whether it was a tactical move to give a less important portfolio or to be left free to be the face of the BJP campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, due early 2017.
There are three new faces from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Anupriya Patel, a first-time MP from Mirzapur whose party Apna Dal is an NDA ally, was made an MoS in the health ministry. She belongs to the Kurmi community. Krishna Raj, a dalit MP from UP, was made the junior minister in the women and child development ministry, while brahmin MP from the state M.N. Pandey was made minister of state in the HRD ministry. R.S. Katheria, another BJP MP from UP, was dropped from the council of ministers.
Veteran BJP MP from Bareilly Santosh Gangwar, who was MoS (independent charge) in the textiles ministry, has been shifted to the finance ministry in place of Jayant Sinha.
Earlier, Mr Modi inducted 19 new faces, including BJP leaders S.S. Ahluwalia, M.J. Akbar and Vijay Goel, in the second expansion of his government ahead of political battles in Uttar Pradesh and other states. Akbar will be the second MoS for external affairs, along with V.K. Singh.
Five ministers of state were dropped in the second exercise undertaken by Mr Modi in a little more than two years since he took over in May 2014. Tuesday’s reshuffle saw a number of dalit and OBC leaders being given ministerial positions, apparently with an eye on elections in UP and Uttarakhand next year and in Gujarat later.
The expansion takes the total strength of the council of ministers to 78, just under the allowed maximum of 82 (15 per cent of the Lok Sabha’s strength).
The Rashtrapati Bhavan said the President accepted the resignations of five ministers — Sanwar Lal Jat (water resources), Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya (agriculture), Nihal Chand (panchayati raj), Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava (tribal affairs) and Ram Shankar Katheria (HRD).
