Prime Minister Narendra Modi has caused something of a flutter, especially among his ministers by changing the portfolios of leading ministers late on Tuesday, and not merely engaged in the act of “expansion” of the council of ministers, as indicated in an informal interaction with chosen journalists on Monday.
Getting Smriti Irani out of human resources development has naturally drawn the most comment, given her high profile and combative outlook on account of which she was in the news continually. This pugnacious streak had earlier been courted by the BJP as well as the PM himself who had tweeted Ms Irani’s speech in Parliament when she got into verbal fisticuffs with BSP leader Mayawati on the issue of Rohith Vemula and the anti-dalit goings-on in Hyderabad Central University.
The fan brigade had then lauded the fire the then HRD minister had spewed. But the plain fact is that the BJP and the RSS have had a change of mind with the Uttar Pradesh state election coming up, for which the saffron camp is trying hard to cut into Ms Mayawati’s dalit votes.
Ms Irani’s head is a small price to pay. Ms Irani was too high-profile and was firmly identified with the anti-dalit mindset in the government and had therefore become a liability when so much calculation is centring around the Uttar Pradesh election. Mind, she is still in the Cabinet and is holding textiles, important from the perspective of employment generation.
There is another noteworthy change. For the past two years, finance minister Arun Jaitley was seen as one who handles multiple responsibilities with élan. Besides finance, his main beat, he was also defence and I&B minister. It was realised all round that defence was a stop-gap job, but not the other two. Now he is left with only finance, although that is a weighty enough portfolio.
I&B has been entrusted to Venkaiah Naidu, for whom it will be a second portfolio. Mr Naidu was BJP president before Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, and is in that political sense the most senior leader in the Cabinet in terms of experience at top levels. He is also uncomplicated and affable, and keeps a low profile.
Five faceless junior ministers have been dropped. One of them has been silly enough to grumble. That is unlikely to cut ice with the senior leadership or with his constituents, for caste and community considerations are well covered in the revamp.
With Tuesday’s changes, the PM has filled up 78 of the 82 ministers permitted under the rule of 15 per cent of the current Lok Sabha strength. This is not the “minimum” government and “maximum governance” that Mr Modi has spoken of.
