MODI MOVE: CABINET HAS 36 NEW MEMBERS
THIRTY-SIX NEW MEMBERS INDUCTED WITH POLL-BOUND STATES GETTING GREATER REPRESENTATION
THREE dozen new faces were inducted into India prime minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, taking the number of ministers to 77 up from 52.
More than a dozen ministers are from poll-bound states such as Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat representing different castes and regional communities, a dominant factor in India’s electoral politics.
However, the expansion last Wednesday (7) witnessed the exit of 12 ministers, among them health minister Harsh Vardhan; minister for law and justice and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad and minister for information and broadcasting, environment and climate change, Prakash Javadekar.
Modi appointed Mansukh Laxman Mandaviya as the country’s new health minister just hours after Vardhan, who was the face of the government’s efforts to fight Covid-19, was asked to step down along with his deputy.
Mandaviya, who belongs to Modi’s home state Gujarat, was previously a junior minister holding the portfolios for ports and chemicals and fertilisers.
Vardhan, 66, came in for particular criticism during the spike in infections in April and May blamed on new virus variants and lax restrictions. The health service was under severe pressure in many areas with hospitals running out of beds, medical oxygen and drugs.
Weeks before Vardhan had said India was “in the end-game” of the pandemic. The country’s official death toll has exploded from 160,000 at the end of March to more than 400,000 now. Many experts suspect the true toll is several times higher.
Opposition leader P Chidambaram said the removal of the health minister and his deputy was an acknowledgement that the Modi government had failed in managing the pandemic but the buck should stop with Modi.
“There is a lesson for ministers in these resignations. If things go right the credit will go to the PM, if things go wrong the minister will be the fall guy,” he said.
Both Prasad, 66, and Javadekar, 70, were seen as faces of the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government, with some press reports suggesting they would handle party work ahead of the key state elections. Seven Indian states are due to hold elections next year, six of them currently ruled by the BJP. They include Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, Gujarat and Punjab.
Earlier this year the BJP suffered a major setback when it failed to wrest power in the important eastern state of West Bengal from a high-profile Modi critic.
Some commentators said this was a reflection of Modi’s falling popularity because of his handling of the pandemic. The BJP did however retain Assam in the northeast. Prasad’s exit from the cabinet has been particularly surprising as he was locked in a bitter dispute with foreign social media companies over a new law.
He authored a law that required social media firms to remove and identify the “first originator” of posts deemed to undermine India’s sovereignty, state security or public order. Social media companies and privacy activists fear the vagueness of the rules means they could be forced to identify the authors of posts critical of the government.
WhatsApp is challenging the rules in court over user privacy violation.
Modi appointed Ashwini Vaishnaw as the new information and technology minister. Amid high fuel prices Hardeep Singh Puri has been appointed oil minister, replacing Dharmendra Pradhan.
Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was once one of the rising stars in the main opposition Congress party but left it to join Modi’s BJP becomes aviation minister. His first challenge will be to organise the sale of loss-making national carrier Air India. Scindia has also been entrusted with reviving the aviation industry that has been hit hard by the pandemic.
Among the new members inducted into the cabinet were four from Karnataka, including millionaire media mogul Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shobha Karandlaje. Karandlaje has several police cases filed against her over her allegedly anti-Muslim remarks.
Six other women ministers also found a place in the new cabinet.
Modi retained his core team at the foreign, finance, home and defence departments even though the economy is in a deep recession and there are widespread concerns that a surge in Covid-19 infections will stall economic recovery.
“The larger implication is the confidence the Modi government had was shaken by the Covid-19 second wave,” said political commentator Rasheed Kidwai. “Modi is trying to introduce a new work culture by these changes.”