The new Cabinet under PM Modi has been revealed. Who gets which portfolio and what does it mean?
From the top down now, PM Narendra Modi will hold charge of the Ministry of Personnel, public grievances and pensions. He also has charge of the Departments of Atomic energy and Space. This means the PM will be heading the departments that make decisions over Atomic energy and space, both important ministries that will become more important in the coming years.
Next up we have Rajnath Singh, who’s been given charge of Defence. Charge of the Defence ministry has been transferred from Nirmala Sitharaman to Singh. So who’s the new Minister of Home Affairs? Well none other than Modi’s right hand man Amit Shah.
Shah is the first and biggest addition to Modi’s Cabinet. Who else is on the Cabinet? Listen to the podcast for all the details:
Now from new appointments to people retaining their old ministries. Nitin Gadkari retains charge of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Gadkari’s also been given charge of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Next we have someone who’s returned to the limelight with this Cabinet. DV Sadananda Gowda, who has been appointed as Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers.
The former Karnataka CM had charge of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in the previous Cabinet, but will oversee the Chemicals and Fertilisers ministry in this Cabinet.
Now that she’s no longer the Defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman takes over as the Finance Minister, as well as the Corporate Affairs Ministry from Arun Jaitley. Jaitley, who was one of the notable faces missing from this Cabinet, opted out of returning as a Union minister citing ill health. He’d undergone a kidney transplant in January this year.
Another key portfolio is the Ministry of External Affairs. Sushma Swaraj won’t return to the Cabinet, again citing health reasons.
Meet the new external affairs minister – Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. He’s served as foreign secretary in the past, apart from being India’s ambassador to at least four countries including the US and China.
Smriti Irani has been bumped up to Minister of Women and Child Development. She also retains the Textile ministry. However, this means bad news for Maneka Gandhi, who is no longer Minister of Women and Child Development.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is still Minister of Law and Justice but now he’ll also be the Minister of Communications and Information Technology.
Piyush Goyal continues to retain his ministership over the Railways but he’ll also be handling the Ministry of Commerce now.
And for those of you interested in sports, there’s a new Sports Minister. Rajyavardhan Rathore is out and Kiren Rijiju is in.
Another technocrat whom Modi has placed faith in is Hardeep Puri – he has multiple Minstries under him. He’ll be the Minister of State (independent charge) for….wait for it….Civil Aviation, Housing and Urban Affairs, and Commerce and Industry.
Another name that’s been dropped is JP Nadda, who was the Health minister in the previous Cabinet. Speculation is that he’s in line to be the next BJP president.
Some other previous ministers who have been left out this time include Radha Mohan Singh, Mahesh Sharma, Jayant Sinha, SS Ahluwalia, Vijay Goel, KJ Alphons and Anant Kumar Hegde. The rumour mill says that they’re ALL likely to get bigger roles in their respective states… especially Rathore, Alphons and Hegde.
This Cabinet has 20 first-time ministers. The biggest name, of course, is S Jaishankar… but there’s also Pralhad Joshi and Anurag Thakur. On a sidenote, despite this government having the largest number of women MPs, the new Cabinet only has THREE women leaders against six last time.
Most of these leaders are from the BJP. So what did the Allies get?
The Janata Dal (United) won 16 Lok Sabha seats but decided to stay away from the government reportedly because the BJP was offering them just one Cabinet berth.
Tamil Nadu has zero representation in the lower house this time, since the AIADMK’s sole MP, Raveendranath Kumar, wasn’t given a post either.
The Akali Dali, has just one minister – Harsimrat Badal – just like the last time. Similarly, in aamchi Mumbai, only Arvind Sawant from the Shiv Sena managed to make the cut.
The treatment given to the allies appears to send a clear message from the BJP to its allies – that they are completely at PM Modi’s mercy.
Only three ministers on this Cabinet belong to religious minorities. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is the only Muslim and there are two Sikhs, Harsimrat Badal and Hardeep Puri. Similarly, there are just two Adivasi ministers – Faggan Singh Kulaste from MP and Arjun Munda from Jharkhand. This means a majority of the ministers are either upper caste or OBC Hindus.
But the big takeaway is that with Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari being the only ministers with some clout independent of Modi, power in the government will get even more consolidated in the hands of the PMO and Amit Shah than in Modi’s first tenure.
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