There is a strong possibility of a major reshuffle in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet. According to sources, four to five BJP ministers may be shuffled from the Cabinet and brought into the party’s organization. The expansion is solely intended to prepare for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and evolving political equations in big states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Telangana will also play a role in the changes. In the reshuffle, the Shiv Sena faction, headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who commands the support of a majority of Sena MPs, is likely to get representation.
Chief Akhilesh Yadav is preparing the political ground from home after winning the Manipuri by-election and bringing Shivpal Yadav into the party fold. He is now focussing with full intensity on the issue of caste census, directly connecting with the youth of every village and chalking out a strategy for the future. Akhilesh lauded Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for initiating the caste census, saying that the British had also thought about it in 1931, which alone could ensure the development of all castes.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has announced an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) as he preps for the upcoming Mumbai civic polls. The strategic move is seen as an attempt by Thackeray to consolidate and strengthen support among Dalits. Ambedkar said that the alliance is between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the VBA for the moment, but he hoped and expected that, along the same lines, the other constituents of the Maha Vikas Aaghadi (the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) will also join. The alliance will face off against the BJP, Shinde Sena, and RPI combined in the upcoming BMC elections, the first test since the upheaval last year that led to the fall of the MVA government in Maharashtra. The fight for control over the BMC will be a key and prestigious fight between the two warring factions of the Shiv Sena, and that too ahead of the assembly elections slated for 2024.
