Cabinet 2.0: With 36 new faces, Modi pulls all stops, targets many birds with 1 stone

The reshuffle, seemingly, a complete overhaul, sought to combine a package of energy, experience, expertise and election priorities

Effecting a major rejig in the second year of his second term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dropped 12 ministers from his Council of Ministers including those handling the key portfolios of health, education, telecom, IT and Information and Broadcasting and inducted 43 with 36 new faces including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal and Narayan Rane. A total of 15 Cabinet Ministers and 28 Ministers of State were sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday.

While Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was dropped in wake of mounting criticism of his ministry's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, what came as a surprise was the resignations of IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar, who were the media faces of Modi government, being fielded to counter the government's criticism on issues ranging from media freedom to social media rows. Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar, who had months ago complained to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the Covid-19 management situation in his constituency, also put in his papers.

Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister D V Sadananda Gowda (68) put in his papers after BJP chief JP Nadda called him, springing a surprise. Indications are that some of them will be pressed into party work, where a number of key vacancies exist.

Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju, former IPS officer R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Mansukh Mandaviya, Parshottam Rupala, G Kishan Reddy and Anurag Thakur were elevated to the Cabinet-level amid perception of their having worked well in the respective ministries. Gujarat, the home state of Mandaviya and Rupala and Himachal Pradesh, the home state of Anurag Thakur, are going to the polls next year.

The change reflected not only in resignations and inductions of new ministers but was also followed in portfolio allocation and clubbing of ministries. Entrusting Mansukh Mandaviya with the charge of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Modi has put his faith in the young leader from Gujarat to undo the damage done to the government's image during the second wave of the pandemic while Jyotiraditya Scindia, who delivered Madhya Pradesh to the BJP after defecting from the Congress has been given the Civil Aviation Ministry.

Anurag Thakur got the important portfolio of Information and Broadcasting besides the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry ahead of the Olympics. Another young minister Kiren Rijiju was elevated to Cabinet rank and got the Law and Justice portfolio.

Ashwini Vaishnav is the new Ministry for Railways, Communications and MEITY held by Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad earlier. Vaishnaw, a former IAS officer like S Jaishankar and Hardeep Singh Puri, has been brought in with the target of bringing efficiency in government.

Dharmendra Pradhan lost the Ministry of Petroleum but got the Education Ministry along with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship based on the argument that synergy was required at a time when job creation was a big challenge for the government.

Home Minister Amit Shah will also look after the newly created Ministry of Cooperation while his right-hand man in organisation Bhupendra Yadav got the Labour and Employment Ministry along with the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (last held by Javadekar).

Goyal was given the Ministry of Textiles and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (ministries held by Smriti Irani and the late Ram Vilas Paswan respectively), besides retaining his earlier portfolio of Commerce and Industry.

Hardeep Singh Puri, after his elevation, got the ministries of Housing and Urban Affairs as well as Petroleum and Natural Gas while R K Singh got the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. G Kishan Reddy got the ministries of Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region. Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi was made the MoS in the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Culture.

BJP allies were also inducted - RCP Singh of the JD(U) received the Ministry of Steel, Pashupati Kumar Paras from the LJP got the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal (Sonelal) got the Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

After the reshuffle, 47 ministers of the Modi Cabinet belong to OBCs/SCs/STs but no new Muslim minister was inducted, which leaves Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi as the lone member of the community in the Modi Cabinet.

The age of inductees ranged from 35-year-old Nisith Pramanik from West Bengal to 69-year-old Narayan Rane as government sources claimed that with this reshuffle, Modi had got the youngest Cabinet in the history of India. The average age of the Council of Ministers was now 58, sources said, and signalled a succession plan for the future, which the BJP had been pushing by promoting second- and third-rung leaders through such exercises time and again.

There has been an attempt to add professional expertise to the Modi Cabinet, which has often faced a talent-deficit problem. The new team has 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers and seven former bureaucrats. Seven ministers have PhDs while three have MBAs and 68 are graduates.

Barring the top four ministries at Raisina Hill, other key ones have gone for an overhaul. It's an attempt to reset governance amid a growing perception in the BJP that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image had taken a beating on the issue of the handling of Covid-19. As such, it was interesting to see who was inducted into key ministries like education, health and some ones related to infrastructure to get the economy back on track.

Nearly three dozen new faces have been inducted ahead of the 2022 state polls in six states, including Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha constituencies. Crucial to the BJP's performance in the general elections, the Modi government reached out to OBCs, SCs and STs in a big way. Seven more ministers were inducted from UP, where elections are due next year and the BJP is facing a huge anti-incumbency problem.

Sarbananda Sonowal, the former Assam Chief Minister, received the Ministry of Ayush and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways in recognition of his services as Assam's first BJP Chief Minister and then quietly made way for Himanta Biswa Sarma after the polls this year.

Narayan Rane's induction, who got the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, is an indication of a big Maharashtra game plan in the future, where an Opposition alliance led by the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress is ruling.

By inducting the Apna Dal (Sonelal)'s Anupriya Patel, the JD(U)'s R C P Singh and the LJP's Pashupati Paras in the Council of Ministers, the BJP has sought to firm up ties with coalition partners after having lost key allies like the Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal in the last two years.

Other prominent inductees were Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha MP Virendra Kumar, Karnataka MP Shobha Karandlaje, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Ajay Bhatt, Meenakshi Lekhi, Bharati Pawar, Shantanu Thakur and Kapil Patil.

The reshuffle, kind of a complete overhaul, sought to combine a package of energy, experience, expertise and election priorities as the government attempted to send a message that it was open to course correction. While Scindia has an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Harvard University, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has an MTech in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology, along with an Advanced Management Program degree from Harvard University.

Ramchandra Prasad Singh, a former IAS officer, has an MA in International Relations from JNU while Subhas Sarkar has an MBBS degree from Calcutta University. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad's degrees include an MBBS, MS (General Surgery), MCh (Pediatric Surgery), and FCPS (General Surgery), while L Murugan, the BJP Tamil Nadu chief, has an LLM and PhD in Law from Madras University. Munjapara Mahendrabhai, a Lok Sabha MP for Surendranagar, has an MD in General Medicine and Therapeutics.

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