Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet expansion on Sunday, Arun Jaitley held two important portfolios finance and defence. He still holds two finance and I&B. So, what does this tell us? Should we expect another round of inductions in the Union council of ministers?
To begin with, in May, Mr Modi had 45 ministers. He thought a compact size would be in accord with his slogan of “minimum government, maximum governance”.
Theories were floated that ministries and departments with similar aims could be clubbed together to effect economy and bring about coordination and cohesion.
It soon became clear that too few ministers cannot run a vast country with a wide variety of concerns. So, now we have 66 ministers. But the case of Mr Jaitley shows that gaps still need to be filled.
The I&B ministry is a white elephant, of course. It should not exist in a democracy and this government is said to be all about “reform”, unlike its predecessors which many believed had “socialist” ideas.
But will the Modi government give up the temptation to control DD and AIR on which its political representatives can hold forth without fearing inconvenient questions?
More, will a body like the Hindu-supremacist RSS, which runs the show from behind in crucial ways, tolerate not having a propaganda arm, especially when its chief can have his annual speech televised live for free, as happened last month for the first time?
It was suggested in this space on Monday that the Cabinet expansion undertaken by Mr Modi underlined that the talent pool in the BJP Parliamentary Party was shallow, and this led to calling up men like Manohar Parrikar, Suresh Prabhu, as well as Birendra Singh, a Congress import.
Mr Parrikar and Mr Prabhu have doer reputations beyond the saffron fold, and should be an asset to the government. They will be on test in defence and the railways, both being vital to growth (in the case of defence, if it can push production of India’s needs domestically).
There is still some talent outside the BJP bloc in Parliament though, for instance Arun Shourie and Subramanian Swamy. Will they be called up? Can Mr Modi abide with those in his Cabinet who also have some reputation for intellectualism and can ask questions even if only to advance the saffron agenda?
It is a commonplace to suggest that Cabinet rejigs are basically a political exercise, and caste, region and other electoral considerations have to be met, as they have been.
But to promote as minister Bihar’s Giriraj Singh, who is apparently so anti-Muslim that he publicly said those who criticise Mr Modi should go to Pakistan, hardly sits well in a democratic framework.
