Speculation high over Amit Shah as the Finance Minister or at Home?

Hours before Narendra Modi is sworn in as Prime Minister for the second successive term on Thursday evening, speculation over the inclusion of BJP president Amit Shah in the ministry and his possible portfolio has intensified.

While a section within the BJP believe that the party’s Chanakya, credited with building up the party’s organisation and for the party’s stellar electoral performance, will not like to get tied down to one or more ministries and with executive responsibility, others believe that Prime Minister Modi needs someone he can blindly trust in the ministry and that Shah alone enjoys his complete trust.

In case Shah is included in the ministry, these insiders claim, there is strong probability that he would be given the important Finance portfolio or Home. Some insiders suggest that Shah will be more comfortable with the Home Ministry because then he will not be responsible for steering the economy through choppy waters. He was Home Minister in Gujarat and unofficially has been directing several decisions in the Home ministry, they claimed.

The speculation of Shah’s inclusion has intensified also because several BJP members in the outgoing ministry like Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti did not contest the election this time. With the demise of Manohar Parrikar and the poor health of Arun Jaitley, all eyes are trained on how the Prime Minister fills up the four top portfolios of Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs.

Smriti Irani, who defeated Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, is also expected to get a prize portfolio. Fluent in Bengali and with the BJP eyeing to unseat Mamata Banerjee in Bengal in the Assembly election in 2021, both Irani and singer-turned-Asansol MP and minister Babul Supriyo are also expected to get important portfolios. It is also possible that one or two more BJP MPs from Bengal will be accommodated with an eye to the Assembly election.

Former journalist, author and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta would also be hoping for a berth in the Union Council of ministers. Dasgupta has been close to both Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley and has the intellectual heft to shoulder an important portfolio.

Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir are also due to be held later this year.

Two junior ministers, Manoj Sinha and Hardeep Puri, also lost in the election and the ministry is expected to acquire a new look with a section of the

There is also interest in whether the Prime Minister chooses to retain Harsimrat Kaur Badal in the ministry or induct her husband Sukhbir Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal in her place. Chances of the former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister making the grade are said to be high, according to sources.