Sunday Shuffle: Cabinet 1.0 gains weight after expansion

The taciturn look on the face of BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani sitting in the front row a seat away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Rashtrapati Bhawan as the first expansion of the NDA ministry took place on Sunday told a tale. The induction of Manohar Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu were clear indications that the fulcrum of power within the NDA establishment rested with the Prime Minister and not anywhere else.

According to President House communique, in the late night reshuffle of portfolios, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley got additional charge of Information and Broadcasting whereas he handed over Defence portfolio to Manohar Parrikar. As expected Sadanand Gowda was divested of Railways, which was handed over to Suresh Prabhu. Gowda would be the new law minister. Rural Development went to Chaudhary Birender Singh. Surprisingly Harshvardhan was divested of the charge of Health Ministry, which was handed over to JP Nadda. Vardhan has been given Science and Technology, which was being held by Minister in PMO Jitender Singh, who would now hold independent charge of Ministry of North-East Affairs. 

The expansion was not without an exciting prelude, as Shiv Sena nominee Anil Desai was asked to return to Mumbai post-haste upon landing in the national capital. Despite running the risk of fall of his party’s minority government in Maharashtra, the prime minister decided to hold a red flag to one of the oldest constituents of the alliance by first not allowing himself to be blackmailed into shelling out ministerial berths in Maharashtra and two not paying heed to Sena leadership’s advice of not inducting Prabhu.

Prabhu has since resigned from the Shiv Sena and joined BJP. The Mumbai-based chartered accountant was one of the closest advisors of Modi during the run-up to the 2014 polls.  As a mark of protest against the cancellation of Narendra Modi’s keynote address at the Wharton India Economic Forum 2013, Prabhu had also called off his visit to the University. He was power minister in the Vajpayee government before being sidelined by Shiv Sena leadership.

The induction of Parrikar and Prabhu into the Cabinet has made it abundantly clear that the BJP leadership, which was so far dominated by the Delhi-based leaders, has come to be controlled by leaders from other centres with close liaison with the prime minister, including party president Amit Shah. With vacancies now arising in the party following induction of office-bearers like JP Nadda, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Bandaru Dattatreyya and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi into the ministry, Shah would have the opportunity to further consolidate his control over the orgainsation.

On the ‘efficacy’ of the move, it can be pointed out that the reshuffle could give the necessary push for economic regeneration as the promise of ‘achche din’ (good days) are still to trickle down to the common people. The Prime Minister has tried to induct faces which have the talent to give governance a push in matters of results.

The reshuffle has naturally taken care of the regional imbalances by giving due representation to Rajasthan and Himachal. It has paid due regards to those who facilitated its victory in Maharashtra and Haryana and have put focus on the upcoming polls in Jharkhand, in Bihar (2015) and later Uttar Pradesh (2017). However, the state of Uttarakhand, which returned MPs from all the five seats, remains unrepresented. On the other hand between Bihar and UP there are now 21 ministers in the 66-member council.