In latest revamp, Modi puts a premium on performance Amit Shah set to revamp Team BJP after reshuffle of Modi cabinet
CHANGE OF GUARD PM didn’t flinch from showing exit door to several nonperforming ministers and cutting to size a few others
If performance was the criterion for promotion, demotion and resignation of ministers in the latest reshuffle and expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s team on Sunday, it also reflected his intent to try out new strategies to rev up governance.
Sunday’s exercise was predominantly an effort to bring renewed focus and energy into the government with barely 21 months ahead of the next general elections, but it was marked by political symbolism too. The appointment of Nirmala Sitharaman as defence minister is expected to go down well with women across the country.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hailed it as a “great and remarkable thing” that there will be two woman ministers — the first being external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj— in the cabinet committee on security that comprises the PM, the home minister and the finance minister.
The promotion of Sitharaman and Dharmendra Pradhan and induction of KJ Alphons in the government are expected to boost the BJP’s prospects in their home states — Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Kerala. What marked the third rejig of Team Modi was the PM’s decisiveness and willingness to make experiments. He is known to spring surprises in picking his team and there were quite a few this weekend — giving independent charge of ministries to three former bureaucrats who joined the Union council for the first time, shifting Uma Bharti to a low-profile ministry, demoting Vijay Goel, bringing new faces in the infrastructure ministries such as railways, power, and housing and urban affairs.
Modi didn’t shy away from showing the exit door to half-adozen non-performing ministers and cutting to size a few others such as Bharti and Goel.
That Modi put a premium on performance while revamping his team was evident from promotion of ministers such as Piyush Goyal, Pradhan, Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to cabinet rank. Ministers of state such as Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Santosh Gangwar were given independent charge of ministries. All of them were known to be efficient. Petroleum minister Pradhan was given the added responsibility of skill development, which has been a big disappointment so far. Goyal was tasked to turn around the railways at a time the ministry’s image suffered a battering.
Sitharaman’s choice as defence minister might be a surprise, but she has the proven ability to respond to new challenges, be it in her capacity as a BJP spokesperson in her initial years or as commerce minister later.
What left many perplexed was the PM’s decision to induct domain experts but give them responsibilities unrelated to their core areas of competence. Former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri was made minister of housing and urban affairs, former home secretary RK Singh the power minister, Delhi “Demolition Man” KJ Alphons the minister of tourism, and former Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh a junior minister of human resource development and water resources. But the idea, say ruling party leaders, is to bring professional competence, efficiency, and more administrative experience into government, regardless of their areas of expertise.
Modi might have played a gambit by bringing new faces because they might not have much time to settle in and turn things around ahead of 2019 elections. But given that here is a proactive PMO that guides and monitors functioning of ministers, they might get going sooner than one expects.
The resignation of six ministers from the Narendra Modi government and the Sunday expansion of his council of ministers also set in motion the revamp of the BJP.
Kalraj Mishra, Bandaru Dattatreya, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Sanjiv Balyan and Faggan Singh Kulaste resigned as ministers ahead of the Sunday reshuffle.
BJP sources said party president Amit Shah was expected to replace some leaders of his team with new faces, an exercise aimed at fine-tuning the organisation ahead of the 2019 polls.
Rudy and Balyan could be brought in as national general secretaries of the party, sources said. The party can have a maximum of 13 vice presidents, nine general secretaries and 15 secretaries. At present, Shah’s team has seven vice-presidents and general secretaries each and 11 secretaries. Five of the seven general secretaries have never contested a direct election.
The vacancy in the team was created following party leaders taking up ministerial jobs in states.
BJP secretaries Siddharth Nath Singh, Mahendra Singh and Shrikant Sharma became ministers in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP also appointed junior HRD minister Mahendra Pandey as the chief of its UP unit in place of Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is now a deputy chief minister.
Party’s national vice president Dinesh Sharma, too, has been appointed deputy CM. He was the in charge of Gujarat.
Jharkhand in charge Trivendra Singh Rawat became the Uttarakhand chief minister.