WILL THERE BE A CABINET RESHUFFLE?

While no one has been able to second guess Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is no denying that the buzz of a reshuffle is certainly in the air. There have been a series of meetings presided over by either the PM himself or Home Minister Amit Shah with various members of the Union ministry. Yes, it could be a routine stock taking on the eve of the Monsoon session but there is no denying that the Council of Ministers is in dire need of a face lift.

Without going into specific names, the Modi cabinet lacks bench strength. During his first stint as Prime Minister, the focus was more on building his own team rather than continuing with A.B. Vajpayee’s cabinet. That did ruffle some feathers as seniors like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were marginalised in the now infamous Marg Darshak Mandal, while others like Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha turned rebels. Fresh faces like Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar and Smriti Irani were drafted in and the general expectation was that they were being groomed to play a heftier role in PM Modi’s second stint. That made sense as Modi wanted to shape his own team rather than inherit one. All of the above-mentioned names have been included in PM Modi’s second term as well.

Yet, there is a perception that the Modi cabinet lacks bench strength. The performing ministers remain those inherited from the Vajpayee regime—Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh and the late Sushma Swaraj and the late Arun Jaitley. The second generation talent though inducted hasn’t been given much room to manoeuvre. It is still the PMO that takes all the key decisions. Will the PMO decentralise and give ministers more elbow room? If yes, then this can be done even without a reshuffle.

The second concern regards crucial sectors that have seen some ups and downs as a fallout of certain policy decisions taken by the government. Such as agriculture and education. There have also been concerns that in a Covid continuous world there is a need for an able administrator, rather than a medical professional to head the health ministry.

The third compulsion is what any Prime Minister faces, balancing regional compulsions and allies. Ever since the SAD walked out of the government and Ram Vilas Paswan’s demise there has been no ally in the cabinet. It is expected that token concessions will be given to the JD(U) in this regard.

But whether there is a reshuffle or not, the political buzz has certainly distracted the headlines from Covid and China and that itself would have come as a relief for the party’s headline managers!

There is a perception that the Modi cabinet lacks bench strength. The performing ministers remain those inherited from the Vajpayee regime—Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh and the late Sushma Swaraj and the late Arun Jaitley. The second generation talent though inducted hasn’t been given much room to manoeuvre.