India’s health minister resigns in major Modi cabinet reshuffle
● A total of 43 ministers take oath ● At least six junior ministers were promoted and given full cabinet berth
INDIA’S health minister resigned on Wednesday ahead of a cabinet reshuf e and enlargement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has faced stinging criticism for its handling of the country’s Covid-19 pandemic.
Harsh Vardhan’s resignation as health minister comes as a virulent second wave of the pandemic that struck between April and June revealed vast shortcomings in India’s health care infrastructure, with thousands desperately searching for hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and medicines.
The country’s vaccine programme that began in January has also failed to scale up as expected with less than 5 per cent of the population fully vaccinated to date.
Vardhan’s exit is being seen as an acknowledgement of the fact that the health ministry could have handled the pandemic better.
The new health minister is Mansukh Mandaviya, a lawmaker from Modi’s native ujarat who has a background in veterinary sciences.
Vardhan’s resignation had been accepted along with that of 11 other ministers, a government release said. Later, dozens of ministers took their oaths on Wednesday evening.
Others who resigned included several prominent faces like information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who has been engaged in a public tussle with social media platforms like Twitter over new regulations. Prasad also held the law and justice portfolio.
Prakash Javdekar, who was in charge of the environment and information and broadcasting portfolios, was also dropped, along with the labour and education ministers.
The labour ministry is seen has having mishandled the situation when thousands of migrants heading home when a sudden lockdown was announced in March 2020 to control the pandemic.
The education ministry too is seen to have not been up to the mark in handling the needs of students and the education sector during the pandemic.
The reshuf e is being seen as an effort by the Modi government to bring in more professional and administrative experience and give the government a new look and energy as the pandemic impacts planned programmes and the prime minister’s image.
Former civil servant Ashwani Vaishnaw, who studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, anpur and Wharton Business School in the US, will be the new minister for information and technology. He has been given the railways portfolio as well.
A total of 43 ministers took their oath at a formal ceremony at the presidential palace with restricted attendance due to Covid-19 protocols.
At least six junior ministers were promoted and given full cabinet berth, while the rest are new to Modi’s council of ministers.
Modi has been holding performance assessment meetings with small groups of ministers over the past six weeks.
The cabinet has been expanded from 52 to 77.
The enlargement accommodates wider regional and caste representations, as well as allies of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is looking ahead to local elections in several states including the political heavyweight Uttar Pradesh in 2022 and general elections in 2024.