With ministers chanting 'Modi Naam Kevalam', why does he need to expand or reshuffle ministry ?

What can retrieve the image of the Government and the Prime Minister? Battered badly by the economy and inflation threatening to spin out of control and negative and adverse publicity in international media due to mismanagement of the pandemic, the Modi Government is looking for face savers.

There is serious concern within the BJP at the declining popularity of Union ministers, chief ministers in BJP-ruled states and party MPs. The Prime Minister too has for the first time in seven years been at the receiving end of public ire and is perceptibly on the backfoot.

The spin doctors seem to have prescribed a startling welfare scheme like the Kisan Samman Nidhi before the 2019 election and a major ministerial reshuffle to retrieve the situation.

If the PM does drop some of his ministers and inducts new ones, as pundits have been predicting is imminent, this will be his first reshuffle after winning his second term in 2019.

Political observers with their tongues-in-cheek however wonder if the ministry at all needs to be reshuffled for administrative reasons. Since ministers do not matter and it is a oneand-a-half-man government, where is the need for a facelift? Forget Team India, Team Modi is confined to the bloated PMO, the largest India has seen. It is the Prime Minister who in this Government is the Jack of all trades, who speaks on every subject and interferes in whichever ministry triggers his interest.

People recall the helplessness of late Sushma Swaraj as the External Affairs Minister as the PM called the shots. The late Arun Jaitley confessed that even he did not know of Demonetisation in November 2016 before the cabinet was informed as a mere formality minutes before the PM’s televised address to the nation. He flew off to Japan the next day, leaving Jaitley behind to face the fallout.

His working style has remained unchanged in the second term. None of his ministers were consulted before the sudden lockdown in March last year, least of all the Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. Even as the Health Minister, a qualified doctor and India’s representative in the WHO, repeatedly cut a sorry figure in public, it has been the PM who has been talking to the nation on treatment, protocol and procedures.

So omnipresent is the Prime Minister that even the decision to cancel the class 12th Board Examination was announced by him and not the Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. An embarrassed Pokhriyal got himself hospitalised barely hours before the PM made the announcement. When the minister got himself discharged after a decent interval and arranged an online session with teachers, parents and students, he was again stunned to find the Prime Minister barging in and stealing the show.

Forget about taking decisions, says an insider, ministers are not even allowed to initiate discussions in the ministry without the prior nod of the PMO. Ministers are often unaware when Secretaries and Joint Secretaries are summoned to the PMO for briefings. Late Ram Vilas Paswan, an old hand, would however calmly tell the bureaucrats that he was aware that they had been to the PMO. “Yes, I know. The Prime Minister was telling me about this after the last Cabinet meeting. Anyway, do brief me about what was discussed.”

Several other ministers without Paswan’s presence of mind cut a sorry figure. Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar had been invited as chief guest at the annual conclave of Left-leaning media group Malayala Manorama. But Javadekar was flummoxed on receiving a last minute ‘request’ from the PMO that PM too wanted to address the conclave virtually. So, the minister did attend the function but it was the Prime Minister who again stole the show.

The NDA Government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a complete antithesis. Every minister had a free hand in decision making and ministers spoke at cabinet meetings and their opinions taken seriously. The then Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha testifies: “I had introduced Value Added Tax (VAT) regime, precursor to GST. I called a meeting of finance ministers of states. No permissions were required. No permission was taken. The PMO was simply informed of the outcome. Such was the autonomy.” Another of his contemporaries quips, “Had Modi been the PM, he himself would have addressed the meeting.”

So, why the charade of cabinet reshuffle? The simple and short answer is that Modi and his core team remain focussed on politics and elections 24x7. It is what they are good at and much or most of their time is spent on strategizing for the next elections. The aim of cabinet reshuffle therefore, will be to improve caste and regional balance in view of elections to seven state assemblies next year. Both turncoats from other parties and ambitious but restless BJP leaders need to be pacified.

There is also speculation if the PM would spring a surprise by inducting professionals and domain experts, economists and scientists into the cabinet. Although his disdain for the ‘Harvard’ types is well known, the grapevine holds that with all the heat that he is facing over mismanaging the pandemic, he himself needs a confidence booster and a facelift. Inducting professionals might just ensure a fresh lease to his team, which looks jaded and tired. Names of bankers, doctors and NRIs are being bandied around.

On May 30, 2019, Modi had taken oath of office along with 57 ministers; his team’s strength is down to 53 today. He has not bothered to fill up vacancies caused by parties like Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akali Dal pulling out from the NDA or even vacancies caused by death of incumbents like Ram Vilas Paswan.

In the first term, after the last reshuffle the strength of the Union Council of Ministers had gone up to 78. Therefore, there is plenty of room to induct a large number of new ministers even after the usual suspects are accommodated. The speculation in the media so far is:

• Sarbananda Sonowal gets compensated for vacating the chief minister’s office at Dispur

• Jyotiraditya Scindia makes it after a long wait

• Remains to be seen if former chief ministers Devendra Fadnavis, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje besides former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi are rehabilitated

• Who from Uttar Pradesh gets the call besides Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal and Pravin Nishad from Nishad Party?

• Whether JD(U) finally finds a berth in the Union Council of ministers and if Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party gets back to the NDA and is given a berth

• After losing in Bengal will Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Mamata Banerjee, be given some heft by inclusion in the Union cabinet?

• In view of the rebellion in BJP ranks in Karnataka, will Yediyurappa be asked to move to Delhi?