Current affairs

Two big wickets gone in Modi's cabinet...43 leaders may take oath as Union Ministers!

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

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive of expanding and reshuffling his cabinet has been escalating anticipations across the country over who will win the race and become the cabinet minister. The anticipations have been growing since the resignations of the current officeholders and the sudden camping of several national leaders in Delhi. The Prime Minister has tabled hectic meetings with the leaders close to his circle to give final touches to the cabinet expansion. 

According to reports, the cabinet reshuffle and expansion will be taking place in the evening hours of Wednesday, and while Delhi has been preparing to unfold high-level drama, Union Ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal and Santhosh Gangwar had tabled their resignations on Wednesday. Ramesh Pokhriyal was the Union Minister for Education and Gangwar was serving as the Union Minister for Labour. The resignations have come a day after Union Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot was removed from the cabinet.

Gehlot has been appointed as the Governor of Karnataka and Prime Minister Modi will be inducting dozens of ministers into the cabinet. According to ANI, the Union Cabinet expansion will be held at 6 pm today and it has been expected that 43 leaders will take oath as Union Ministers in the cabinet expansion. Being the first major reshuffle since forming the second consecutive government in 2019, the nation is keenly watching the developments of who will win Modi's eyes and become a part of his cabinet. 

The BJP will be framing the drive to give significant representation to the poll-bound states including Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Manipur. Uttar Pradesh will be getting a sound number of fresh faces in the cabinet reshuffle. The Prime Minister has held meetings with the cabinet ministers to assess their performance in the past two years. 

The ministers were asked to make presentations about their achievements and their works since the government was formed in May 2019. Party president JP Nadda had also attended some of these meetings. The Prime Minister has decided to release the non-performing ministers from the cabinet and would pump in young blood to revitalize his governance. The expansion is also been aimed at relaxing the shoulders of some of the current ministers who are taking care of two or three ministries.

Amid the anticipations, the national leaders, who are the possible faces to win a cabinet berth, had met the Prime Minister at his residence in Delhi. Some of the leaders who met the Prime Minister include Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane, Meenakshi Lekhi, and Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal. BJP President JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh were present at the meeting. 

The reports say that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's close aide RCP Singh will also win a berth in the Central ministry and the Prime Minister will also give the representation to the new Union Territory of Ladakh by promoting the region's sole MP Jamyang Namgyal as a Central minister. The reports close to the developments say that some of the current ministers of state including G Kishan Reddy (Home) and Anurag Thakur (Finance) will be promoted to cabinet rank.

The Prime Minister has been planning to build the cabinet expansion with the representation of the Dalit community and a younger team as the new faces will be below the age of 55. The expansion will also be satisfying the poll-bound states. For the past few days, the BJP high command has held an operation of finding the faces to the cabinet, and on Monday, the Prime Minister has held meetings with Amit Shah and BJP General Secretary (Organization) BL Santhosh to give a final sketch to the cabinet reshuffle drive.

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 of these three tiers. Currently, the government has 53 and the expansion would possibly reach the limit of 81. The visuals from Delhi had shown hectic drive-ins and outs as several BJP leaders have reached and left the Prime Minister's residence and the final pack of the cabinet expansion will be unveiled at around 6 pm on Wednesday. 

 

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