New Delhi: While speculations were rife that Narendra Modi, who was elected BJP parliamentary party leader, a post earlier held by party patriarch L.K. Advani, and also NDA leader last week, could also be the NDA chairman, sources disclosed that Mr Advani could be the NDA chairman, but with curtailed power.
The veteran saffron leader, who had vehemently opposed Mr Modi’s elevation, apparently did not even gave full credit to Mr Modi for BJP’s spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha elections, saying it needs to be assessed.
Name of Karia Munda and Sumitra Mahajan are also doing the round for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post. While the Sangh Parivar fountainhead, RSS has been trying hard to fully implement its formula of a generational shift in the saffron party, old hawks were holding on in the organisation. But Mr Modi and the BJP leadership took a firm decision that Mr Modi’s cabinet will be a “young and smart cabinet.”
Mr Advani’s opposition to Mr Modi’s elevation in the party and then as the Prime Ministerial candidate, failed to change party leadership’s decision to project Mr Modi as the face of the party in the electoral battle.
However the Modi government made space for seven women ministers including six with Cabinet rank in the 45-member council of ministers. Barring Nirmala Sithara-man, who has been made minister of state with independent charge, the rest including Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharti and Najma Hept-ulla, have been given Cabinet rank. Maneka Gandhi, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Zubin Irani have also been made Cabinet ministers.
When the UPA government was sworn-in, there were 80 ministers including nine women. Incidentally, both the youngest and the oldest members in the Modi cabinet also happens to be women —Smriti Irani and Najma Heptulla. Ms Swaraj has been elected seven times as MP and three times as a member of the Legislative Assembly. She also has the distinction of becoming the youngest cabinet minister at 25 in Haryana.
Grand-niece of eminent freedom fighter Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Heptullah was once a prominent Congress member in the Rajya Sabha. She left the party in 2004 due to a strain in relationship with top party leaders for her close association with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-headed NDA government and joined the BJP. Animal-rights activist Gandhi made a comeback to the union cabinet as the only member of the Gandhi family in the BJP-led government.
