The Prime Minister has tried to re-seize the political initiative together with his Wednesday reshuffle of the council of ministers, states senior journalist Neerja Chowdhury in her opinion piece within the Indian Express.
“Since April, he has been on the rear foot. When the second Covid-19 wave hit the country, many died reportedly from oxygen shortages and a general lack of state preparedness. Losing West Bengal also didn’t help… Few had believed that Narendra Modi could axe a dozen ministers, for it might amount to admitting that each one had not been well,” she states.
But that’s precisely what he did on Wednesday. He sacked 12 ministers, particularly those at the top of ministries, which had brought criticism to the govt within the last year and more.
The PM has signalled that he wants a purposeful government. Protecting Brand Modi was a crucial a part of the exercise. By holding only ministers responsible, the PM has made a distinction between those individuals and therefore the Modi sarkar.
Modi has his eye on the forthcoming state elections in 2022 and 2023 — and therefore the general elections in 2024, and beyond. The PM has tried to represent every state of India, in some cases sub-regions in states, also as different castes, particularly OBCs, Dalits and tribals, in his ministry. For the primary time, there are 11 women ministers within the government.
“While every state is vital , it’s Uttar Pradesh that’s critical. With seven new inductees from the state, the amount of ministers from UP has gone up to fifteen ,” she writes.
Chowdhury says the BJP is particularly reaching bent the OBCs again, whose support in UP is significant for it to keep off the challenge from the Samajwadi Party-RLD combine. “The ‘mandalisation’ of the BJP is taking place; the party can not be called a Brahmin-Bania outfit,” she states.
When Modi came to power in 2014, the Atal-Advani era in BJP came to an in depth . In 2019, the phase dominated by “Gen X leaders” also came to an end. Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar gave up the ghost . Venkaiah Naidu became the vice-president. Now there are only a couple of leaders left in government from the “old BJP” like Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari.
“The PM is now fixing place his own team,” she states. The new council of ministers is rich in symbolism too.
“But with petrol prices crossing the Rs 100/litre mark, 230 million reportedly under the poverty level , many jobs reportedly lost within the organised sector alone since the pandemic began, and a 3rd Covid wave an opportunity , people will need quite symbolism to disregard their suffering,” concludes Chowdhury.
