Current affairs

Major cabinet reshuffle of Modi 2.0: Who stays, who comes in, and who is promoted?

By alagu, 07 July, 2021
Narendra Modi, Union Cabinet, BJP

In what has become an unprecedented fashion of cabinet reshuffle, 43 leaders have on Wednesday sworn in as the Union Ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The rejig is the first cabinet expansion and reshuffle since Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed his second consecutive government in 2019. Making the first reshuffle significant, the Prime Minister has awarded berths to several new faces at the Union cabinet and at the Central ministries. 

The final names of 43 leaders were unveiled in the evening hours of Wednesday, after incessant meetings and reviews. The Prime Minister has, along with the leaders in his circle - Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, and JP Nadda, taken stock of the performances of the Union Ministers in the last two years. The Prime Minister has decided to induct fresh faces by giving special concentration to the poll-bound states. 

In his drive of the reshuffle, several Union Ministers were either removed or resigned from the cabinet. On Tuesday, Union Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot was removed from the cabinet and was appointed as the Governor of Karnataka. On Wednesday, several senior Union Ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal, Santhosh Gangwar, Harsh Vardhan, Sadananda Gowda, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar had resigned from their posts.

Some of the Ministers of State including Sanjay Dhotre, Debasree Chaudhuri, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Babul Supriyo, Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao, Rattan Lal Kataria, and Pratap Chandra Sarangi had also demitted their respective offices on Wednesday ahead of the cabinet reshuffle. After hectic talks with the leaders in his circle, the Prime Minister has finalized 43 leaders to become the Union Minister. 

Of these 43 leaders, 14 are under the age of 50, and six are women. Some of the leaders are former bureaucrats and advocates. The Prime Minister has been planning to build the cabinet expansion with the representation of the Dalit community and a younger team as a refreshment for his cabinet. Let's take a look at the prominent faces who make a debut in the Central ministry, the ministers who continue to retain the berth, and the faces who would be promoted to a cabinet rank. 

The prominent faces, who would be new to the cabinet, include Jyotiraditya Scindia (BJP leader who joined the party last year after quitting from the Congress), Sarbananda Sonowal (former Assam Chief Minister), Narayan Rane (former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and BJP MP), Rajeev Chandrasekhar (BJP leader and MP from Karnataka), Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP MP from Delhi), L Murugan (Tamil Nadu BJP President), and Bhupender Yadav (senior BJP leader). 

The following are the leaders who are already serving in the Central Ministry will be promoted to cabinet rank, 

G Kishan Reddy (Minister of State for Home Affairs), Anurag Thakur (Minister of State for Finance), Parshottam Rupala (Minister of State for Panchayat Raj, Agriculture, and Farmers' Welfare), Kiren Rijiju (Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports), Hardeep Singh Puri (Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Housing and Urban Affairs), and Mansukh L. Mandaviya (Minister of State for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways). These leaders will be promoted to cabinet rank and their portfolios will be announced soon. 

Who stays in the Union Cabinet?

Amit Shah (Union Home Minister), Rajnath Singh (Union Defence Minister), Jaishankar (External Affairs Minister), Nirmala Sitharaman (Union Finance Minister), Nitin Gadkari (Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways), Piyush Goyal (Union Minister of Railways), Smriti Irani (Union Minister of Textiles), Arjun Munda (Minister of Tribal Affairs), Dharmendra Pradhan (Minister of Petroleum), Narendra Singh Tomar (Minister of Agriculture), Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (Minister of Minority Affairs), Mahendra Nath Pandey (Minister of Skill Development), Pralhad Joshi (Minister of Parliamentary Affairs), Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Minister of Jal Shakti), and Giriraj Singh (Minister of Animal Husbandry). 

Apart from the above leaders, the rest of the cabinet ministers were resigned. As per the constitutional norms, the Union government can have 81 members - that is 15 per cent of the Lok Sabha strength as the ministers in total. With the current cabinet reshuffle, India would have 77 ministers in the Union Government in three tiers - cabinet, minister of state under a cabinet minister, and minister of state with independent charge. 

 

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