Cabinet reshuffle: PM Modi prefers low profile, result-delivering ministers for his core team

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has affected a change governmental leadership by the cabinet reshuffle and portfolio reallocation. He had inherited a team in Delhi, which was mentored by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

In 2014, he chose to work with few but rest were kept out of the government positions. The seniors like LK Advani, MM Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, and Shanta Kumar were sent to cold storage masquerading as Margdarshak Mandal.

Since the first cabinet reshuffle, PM Modi has worked tirelessly to create his own team at Centre. With Amit Shah as the party president and middle moving into the Cabinet, Modi’s core team has been settled.

 The reshuffle not only affects the composition of CCS, CCPA and CCEA it also shifts power away to the faces closely associated with Vajpayee’s dispensation. If one puts Arun Jately, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh aside, the Cabinet has been re-casted in Modi’s image. The above three have not been superseded but their colleagues have changed. The top three ministers will now work with people who have been politically and administratively authored by Narendra Modi. Administratively, they become equals and the future leadership of BJP. This is the fundamental feature of the Cabinet reshuffle but not the only one.

The elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman who was just a spokesperson before the elections as the Defence Minister is also a sign that Modi privileges performance, loyalty and low-profile work culture from the ministers.

It is for this reason Smriti Irani was shifted from a high-profile ministry like HRD to Textiles. But she clawed her way back into Modi’s good book has been able to retain both Information and Broadcasting and Textile Ministry for herself. The message is clear that low profile functioning by ‘ministers’ is the preferred Modi way.

The same goes for Prakash Javdekar who was elevated to the Cabinet last time around. He too retains the portfolio.

 The fact that Piyush Goyal has been rewarded with Railways and Dharmendra Pradhan has been given additional charge of Skill Development reaffirms that Modi is completing the process of building a post 2019 core team. Both of them have also been elevated as Cabinet Ministers thereby moving them into the core decision making process. The skill development is a project very close to the Prime Minister but Rudy, failed and hence was removed from the ministry. Nirmala on the other hand becomes the 2nd woman Defence Minister of the country after Indira Gandhi. Uma Bharti could only save her job because of her old association with RSS and for this reason her ministry was changed and important projects like Ganga rejuvenation and river inter linking which were part of her ministry was handed over to Nitin Gadkari.  Even MA Naqvi has been elevated as a Cabinet Minister who earlier replaced Najma Heptulla. Despite public criticism, PM didn’t let go of Suresh Prabhu. He has been given a second chance as Commerce Minister. Rajyavardhan Rathore too has been elevated by giving him the independent charge of the Sports Ministry which was earlier held by Vijay Goel who has been shifted to Parliamentary Affairs.

Another big takeaway of this reshuffle is that Modi has inducted lot of technocrats into the ministry. Politically empowered Prime Ministers have done it in past, as, they don’t require political capital from their colleagues. It is for this reason RK Singh, Alphons Kannanthanam and Hardeep Puri were inducted as minister of states with independent charge. All of them have been career bureaucrats and entered BJP laterally before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

 The biggest challenge for the Prime Minister is delivery and for this reason portfolios went the certain way. RK Singh got independent charge of power though coal remains with Piyush Goyal for the sensitivity of the portfolio. Puri and Alphons too have been handed ministries which were found wanting on the delivery side. The former has landed with Urban development and latter with ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It shows that Prime Minister understands that policy formulation in India is easy but delivery becomes next to impossible because of the nature of Indian administrative structure.

The current restructuring is more in line with Indira and Rajiv Gandhi who were in complete control of the government and could move ministers and groom new as per their preferences. This was missing for past 25 years because of the compulsion of coalition politics. Modi today has the same advantage. The only miss seems to have been allies and bifurcation of portfolios which were put together earlier. For example, now coal and power have been given to different ministers. Lastly, the absence ministerial induction from JDU and ADMK shows that these two projects are still unfinished business and would require more time.