Cabinet reshuffle: Uttar Pradesh imprint clear on PM Modi's new team
The shifting of Ms Irani, whose two-year tenure in the Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies.
New Delhi: With an eye on poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the latest reshuffle retained Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise Minister Kalraj Mishra and Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah, despite both the ministers having crossed the 75 years.
The shifting of Ms Irani, whose two-year tenure in the Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies over Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide in Hyderabad and the JNU row, triggered speculation whether it was a tactical move to give a less important portfolio or to be left free to be the face of BJP campaign in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls due in early 2017.
Even as 19 new faces had been inducted in the Union Cabinet on Tuesday morning, and Mr Javadekar’s elevation as cabinet ranked minister too had been announced during the swearing-in ceremony of the new inductees, surprising the details of portfolios arrived quite late in the evening.
The three new faces from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, who were inducted in the cabinet were made ministers of state. Anupriya Patel, the first time MP from Mirzapur and whose party Apna Dal is an NDA ally, was made minister of state in health ministry. She belongs to the Kurmi community. Krishna Raj, the dalit MP from Uttar Pradesh was made junior ministry in the women and child development ministry.
While the Brahmin MP from the state M N Pandey has been made minister of state in the HRD Ministry. Incidentally R S Katheria, another UP MP of BJP was dropped from the HRD Ministry and from the cabinet as well. Veteran BJP MP from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, Santosh Gangwar, who was MoS
(Independent charge) in Textiles, has gone to Finance Ministry in place of Jayant
Sinha.
Five ministers of state were dropped in the second exercise undertaken by Modi in a little more than two years since he took over in May, 2014 which saw a number of dalit and OBC leaders being given ministerial positions apparently with an eye on assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand next year and Gujarat later.
After the dropping of five ministers, today’s expansion took the total strength of
the Council of Ministers to 78, just keeping it under the constitutionally allowed
maximum.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique issued later in the day, said that the President has accepted the resignation of five ministers namely Sanawar Lal Jat (Water Resources), Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya (Agriculture), Nihal Chand (Panchayati Raj), Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava (Tribal Affairs) and Ram Shankar Katheria (HRD).
In the little over 30 minute meeting, which Mr Modi had with the new faces in his
team after the swearing-in ceremongy, he told the ministers that they were free to
celebrate their entry into the Union Council of Ministers for a few hours. But after that they should get down to work.
Narendra Modi’s new team
- Krishna Raj, Women & Child Development
- M.J. Akbar, External Affairs
- Mahendra Nath Pandey, HRD
- Mansukh Mandaviya, Road Transport & Highways, Shipping, Chemicals & Fertilisers
- P. K. Rupala, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Panchayati Raj
- P.P. Chaudhary, Law & Justice, Electronics & IT
- Rajen Gohain, Railways
- Ramdas Athawale, Social Justice & Empowerment
- Ramesh C Jigajinagi, Drinking Water & Sanitation
- Subhash Bhamre, Defence
- S.S Ahluwalia, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Parliamentary Affairs