Rama Krishna Sangem
Caretaker Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 9, Sunday afternoon raised eyebrows as he addressed a meeting with member of his would be Cabinet. This meeting with the shortlisted Cabinet members is held at his official residence Lok Kalyan Marg, 7, in New Delhi. Actual time of swearing in the new team is fixed at 7.15 pm, later in the day at Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
This is a kind of surprise from Modi. Technically, there is no ban on holding a meeting with ‘would be’ team of ministers by a PM. Usually, all the ministerial aspirants wait for a call from the PMO till the last minute and there will be additions and deletions in the last hour. A Cabinet or council of ministers is addressed by the PM only after they were officially sworn in by the President of India. But, this time, Modi sprang a suprise.
What surprised one and all is PM Modi’s eagerness to talk to his new team members – who include from those in BJP as well as from the allies of NDA. He, like a school teacher, spoke to them about his priorities and their new responsibilities in the next term. We all know, BJP won 240 MPs and allies won another 56 in the just concluded 18th Lok Sabha elections.
Modi, in consultation with top BJP seniors like Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and JP Nadda, has finalized names of close to 50 ministers – both Cabinet and the Ministers of State (MoS) – to be sworn in on Sunday. Individual messages have been sent to all those and the allies party leaders were duly consulted and informed. All the seniors of the outgoing team like Rajnath, Shah, Nirmala, Gadkari were retained.
Modi told the would be sworn in ministers to keep in mind the reduced mandate BJP and NDA got in this new LS. He asked them to work without corruption and complacency in administration. He asked them to stick to the 100 days Roadmap finalizsed by his top secretaries in the last few days. Interestingly, BJP will be keeping all key portfolios like Defence, Home, Finance, Commerce, External Affairs, and LS Speaker.
Kishan Reddy, Sanjay in new team
From Telangana present union minister G Kishan Reddy is retained and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay is taken as MoS. Other three aspirants – Aravind Dharmapuri, Etala Rajender and DK Aruna – are left out for now. One of these left out MPs might be considered for the BJP state president post which would be filled in next 2-3 months. Currently, Kishan Reddy is holding the post as a temporary arrangement.
From neighboring Andhra Pradesh, TDP got a union cabinet berth – in K Ram Mohan Naidu, Srikakulam MP and an MoS for Pemmasani Chandrasekhar , Guntur MP. One more MoS is expected to be taken from BJP’s quota in AP – Bhupatiraju Srinivaa Varma. On the whole, it appears the BJP top brass is of the view that the old timers in the party should not be neglected at a time when the party is on an expansion mode.
