New Delhi: The first expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers on Sunday took a dramatic turn as relations between the BJP and its 25-year-old ally Shiv Sena worsened with the latter refusing to nominate a party member for swearing-in and also boycotting the ceremony. Mr Modi’s expansion on Sunday saw the induction of 21 ministers, including four of Cabinet rank, three ministers of state (independent charge) and 14 ministers of state.
The Shiv Sena received another snub when its member, Mr Suresh Prabhu, quit the party and joined the BJP just before being sworn in as a Cabinet minister.
Earlier on Sunday, Sena MP Anil Desai, who reached New Delhi to join the Modi government, did not even step out of the airport as he was called back by the Sena chief after the government apparently refused to give its ally a Cabinet berth. In the evening, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray yet again huffed and puffed, but stopped short of snapping ties. He threatened to sit in Opposition in Maharashtra if the BJP decided to go with the NCP.
Read: Suresh Prabhu dumps Shiv Sena, joins BJP
The Sena has also not taken any step yet to withdraw its man at the Centre, Anant Geete. Relations between the allies continues to be strained, with the BJP showing no signs of giving in to the Sena’s pressure. Suspense, meanwhile, lingered over portfolios, with speculation continuing over former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar getting defence and Suresh Prabhu railways, in place of D. Sadananda Gowda.
Read: Last-minute hitch prevents Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai from taking oath, say sources
Despite the Sena-BJP confrontation in the background, the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan saw the Prime Minister bringing in 21 new faces, taking the strength of his government to 66 ministers. With this expansion, the PM has balanced the regional and caste combinations and sent signals to crucial states like Bihar and West Bengal, where elections will be held in the next few years.
The induction of Jayant Sinha is also seen as a signal to poll-bound Jharkhand.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar and former Shiv Sainik Suresh Prabhu, who was power minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, in the Cabinet along with senior BJP leader J.P. Nadda and Jat leader from Haryana Birender Singh, who joined the BJP ahead of the recent Assembly elections in the state. With Birendra Singh in, the PM has not only streamlined the dynamics of Haryana politics, but has also sent a strong signal to the Jat community spread over four states, including Delhi, which will go to the polls early next year.
An IIT graduate, 58-year-old Parrikar shares an excellent rapport with Mr Modi and has a reputation for probity and administrative skills. Mr Prabhu also earned his reputation as a skilful operator and a reformer as power minister in the Vajpayee government but was suddenly pulled out of the ministry by the Shiv Sena. Ever since, he has not been seen as an active Sainik.
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Inducting three more ministers from Bihar and taking the total strength to seven from the state indicates the priority of the Prime Minister as the Assembly election there is due in the second half of next year. Even the caste preference a Bhumihar, Giriraj Singh, a Yadav, Ramkripal Yadav, and a Rajput, Rajiv Pratap Rudy —shows how the BJP plans to make a dent in the RJD’s Yadav-Rajput vote base in Bihar.
Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, which will go to the polls in 2017, Mr Modi not only tried to strike a regional balance by accommodating Noida MP Mahesh Sharma in his team as minister of state (independent charge), he has set en eye on dalit votes from central UP by inducting Fatehpur MP Sadhvi Niranjana Jyoti and the BJP’s original Muslim face, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from India’s largest and politically most important state, as ministers of state.
Read: Speculation mounts over portfolios
Significantly, however, Mr Naqvi was only made a minister of state and Mr Rudy became MoS with independent charge, but eyebrows were raised when Mr Sharma, a first-time member of the Lok Sabha, was made minister of state (independent charge). Hansraj Ahir, an MP from Chandrapur in Maharashtra, was rewarded for his relentless campaign as a whistleblower in the coal block allocation scam.
The others who have been inducted in the council of ministers include Bandaru Dattatreya as MoS (independent charge); Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, Sanwar Lal Jat, Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya, Ram Shankar Katheria, Jayant Sinha, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Babul Supriyo (all BJP) and Y.S. Chowdary, a Rajya Sabha member from the TDP, as ministers of state.
Thus the strength of the Union council of ministers went up from 45 to 66. Of this, 27 including the PM are of Cabinet rank, 13 ministers of state with independent charge and 26 ministers of state.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended, among others, by vice-president Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson P.J. Kurien, Mr Modi and his Cabinet colleagues, BJP chief Amit Shah and veteran leader L.K. Advani. The CMs of BJP-ruled states like Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh, Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Lal Khattar, and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP were also present, but no one from the Congress attended the ceremony.
Ahead of the swearing-in, the new ministers had a breakfast meeting with Mr Modi at his 7 Race Course Road residence.
