PM Modi's Cabinet reshuffle soon; performance in polls, pandemic among major concerns

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much-anticipated Cabinet reshuffle, beckoning a generational change and seeking to address the poll performance and pandemic concerns, is likely to happen this week itself.

While there is a strong buzz that it could happen on July 7, there is no official confirmation. There are nearly twenty vacancies in the Cabinet and PM Modi may like to augment his team and reach out to various sections before the state polls.

By making 45-year-old Pushkar Singh Dhami, a two-term MLA as Chief Minister of the poll-bound Uttarakhand, Modi dispensation has indicated that it will put its stake in young new leadership, a trend which may also reflect in Cabinet expansion.

Modi had chaired a five-hour-long meeting with the Union Council of Ministers on June 30, the second such meeting within three months. BJP chief J P Nadda also had held several interactions with Union Ministers and party office bearers amid the possibility of Cabinet reshuffle coinciding or being closely followed by organisational changes, including in the party's all-powerful BJP Parliamentary Board, where several positions are vacant.

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Jyotiraditya Scindia, who delivered Madhya Pradesh to BJP after defecting from Congress last year, former Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, who could not get the portfolio after state polls last year and former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu are among the big names who could find a place in the reshuffled Cabinet.

The buzz has gone louder about changes in Ministries of Health and Information and Broadcasting.

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Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, where Yadavs solidly back Samajwadi Party, the party may consider inducting BJP in-charge for Bihar Bhupendra Yadav, who is close to Home Minister Amit Shah. BJP UP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, Madhya Pradesh party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, Pashupati Kumar Paras from LJP in Bihar, Anupriya Patel from Apna Dal in UP are other names in contention.

Appeasement of the allies will reflect in inductions from JDU and Apna Dal. Inductions from Gujarat and Karnataka are also likely, where there is a clamour for a leadership change.

The last Cabinet reshuffle in 2017 during Modi's first tenure was a big exercise, bringing in Nirmala Sitharaman as the second woman to take charge of one of the government's top four ministries. The other woman minister was the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal got promoted and there are indications that the 2021 Cabinet rejig will also seek to focus on creating a new second rung leadership before 2024.

The government would also seek to address the criticism about the deficit in the talent pool of the ministry and could include some technocrats as it had done in past--S Jaishankar and Hardeep Singh Puri.

A number of ministers, who have more than one portfolio, some up to four, may be asked to shed some of them to make the Cabinet a fighting fit force ahead of 2022 state polls, which is being considered sort of a semi-final ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Prabhu is in contention for Commerce and Industry Ministry. It is currently with Piyush Goyal, who is also saddled with multiple portfolios like Railway, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distributions (the last two came to him after the demise of Ram Vilas Paswan October last year). Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi, a Brahmin leader who joined BJP from TMC this year, could be another such induction.

Some of the ministers going out of Cabinet can be accommodated in gubernatorial positions later. Performance during the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to be a key factor behind the rejig as well as the importance of the portfolios in question.

Unlike in his first tenure when PM Modi had carried out three minor and major reshuffles in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the last being a major rejig, this will be the first reshuffle in the Modi 2.0 government.

The reshuffle, if carried out soon, will give some time to the new ministers to settle down before a probable stormy Monsoon Session in Parliament beginning July 29, where the Opposition has planned to grill the government on issues like Covid-19, unemployment and rising petrol price.

Also, from July 20 begins the 'Chaturmas' extending up to mid-November, which some consider to be an inauspicious time during which political parties including BJP have generally avoided carrying out such exercises. Besides, October and November will be festival months, having Dussehra and Diwali while state elections including UP will begin in March next year and Gujarat polls are supposed to be held towards the end of next year.