As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on the idea of expanding his cabinet for the first time in his second term of the ruling, he may be a factor influencing the polls in five states that will go for elections in 2022.
The shuffle in the cabinet is expected in a day or two where Jyotiraditya Scindia might be rewarded whose desertion of Congress had helped the party to take its position back in Madhya Pradesh and Sarbananda Sonowal, who made ways for Himanta Biswa Sarma as Assam Chief Minister after the BJP won a second term in the state.
What could look like deception as far as Chirag Paswan is involved, his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras who revolted against him and led a split in the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) last month, may vacant a post by the death of Ram Vilas Paswan - Chirag's father - last year.
Despite the speculations, it is yet not clear if another ally, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United, will finally join the Union Cabinet or not. The Bihar Chief Minister in 2019 had rejected BJP’s offer of forming one ministry and stayed out. Sources say Mr Kumar wishes for at least two ministries. Resorts suggest JDU leaders Lallan Singh, Ramnath Thakur and Santosh Kushwaha are in the line.
Bihar leader Sushil Modi, Maharashtra leader Narayan Rane and Bhupendra Yadav, a veteran leader in charge of Bihar and Gujarat, may also secure a position in the Modi cabinet.
Also Read: Pashupati Paras replaces Chirag Paswan as the Chief of LJP party
Names have been shortlisted after Modi reviewed the performance of various ministries for over a month.
Uttar Pradesh, an important political state in north India will be going for polls to vote for a new government next year will get a better representation in the round, sources said adding that Varun Gandhi may get a light elevation, Ram Shankar Katheria, Anil Jain, Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Zafar Islam are said to have a spot in the cabinet, either a cabinet member o state minister, is still not clear.
BJP's Uttar Pradesh ally Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel may also be invited in the Union, while from Uttarakhand, Ajay Bhatt or Anil Baluni; Pratap Simha from Karnataka; Jagannath Sarkar, Shantanu Thakur and Nitheet Pramaanik are possible names from Bengal, either of them to get invited,
Other possibilities are - Brijendra Singh (Haryana), Rahul Kaswan (Rajasthan), Ashwani Vaishnav (Odisha), Poonam Mahajan or Pritam Munde (Maharashtra) and Parvesh Varma or Meenakshi Lekhi (Delhi) making it to the Cabinet, notably these names can or likely to change.
The Prime Minister, Home Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda had carried a series of review meetings to zero in on the names, say sources. This reshuffle will be calculated with a sharp focus on the next Lok Sabha election, where PM Modi will contest for his third term in office.
In the review meetings, the performance of all ministries was extensively studied, particularly how they turned out in the devastating second wave of Covid.
Nine ministers who have an additional charge may discard extra ministries as they are overburden or can get new ones- Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Nitin Gadkari, Harsh Vardhan, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and Hardeep Singh Puri are amongst them.
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The Union Cabinet currently has 53 ministers now and has around 81 members, meaning there is space to accommodate 28 ministers.