With Naidu preparing for new role, Modi’s core squad to get a facelift
CABINET REJIG The Prime Minister is likely to reshuffle his pack after Monsoon Session
With Venkaiah Naidu resigning from the Cabinet to contest the upcoming vice-presidential election — he filed his nomination papers on Tuesday and so did the Opposition nominee Gopal Krishna Gandhi — talk of an impending reshuffle of Narendra Modi’s ministers has started all over again. The exercise is likely sometime next month. One reason for the reshuffle is that too many ministers are now handling multiple portfolios. The Prime Minister would also like to drop some non-performing ministers as well.
Although the PM had recently said that he did not have ministers to be spared for the President’s post and had thus named R.N. Kovind, a former Governor of Bihar, as the NDA’s choice, he has now drafted an experienced minister Venkaiah Naidu to be the ruling alliance’s candidate.
With Union Rural Development and Panchayat and Drinking Water Minister Narendra Singh Tomar getting additional charge of the crucial Urban Development and Urban Poverty Alleviation ministries and Textile Minister Smriti Irani getting the sensitive Information and Broadcasting portfolio, a number of ministers are burdened with many important yet diverse portfolios, impacting their performance.
After environment and forest and climate change ( MoEFCC) minister Anil Dave’s sudden demise in May, his ministry was given to Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Minister for Science and Technology. He had earlier handled Health and Family Welfare. Soon after the Goa Assembly election, Manohar Parrikar went back to his home state as the CM. His defence portfolio was returned to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who had headed it soon after the formation of the Modi Cabinet in May 2014 for a few months. With GST rolled out successfully, there are rumours that the finance portfolio may be taken away from Jaitley and the more important defence ministry given to him keeping in mind the border tension with China.
Sources said that some ministries may also be merged and non-performing ministers dropped. It is expected that the Coal and Mines ministries would be merged. At present, Minister of State (Independent charge) for Power, Piyush Goyal, a trusted colleague of the Prime Minister, is holding the charge of four politically significant ministries --- energy, new and renewable energy, coal and mines. The four key ministries were clubbed together to help fuel industrial growth. Goyal has performed exceedingly well and is likely to be promoted, BJP sources told FPJ.
Sources said that non-performing ministers like Uma Bharti, who has not been able to push the Ganga rejuvenation agenda effectively, may be dropped. There is also talk of bringing MP CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan to Delhi.
A rejig of some departments and ministries is also being undertaken with the Directorate of Civil Aviation going to Nitin Gadkari, though civil aviation remains an independent ministry, presently under a non-BJP leader, Ashok Gajapati Raju.