New Delhi, Sept 3: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will induct nine new faces, including BJP leader from Karnataka Anantkumar Hegde, in the council of ministers at Sunday's swearing-in ceremony to be held on Sunday morning.
Another leader from South to be inducted into the Union Cabinet is Alphons Kannanthanam, a retired IAS officer from Kerala famously known as Delhi's "demolition man". Modi has given preference to his state of Uttar Pradesh in the cabinet reshuffle as he has opted for former union home secretary Raj Kumar Singh, former Mumbai police commission Satpal Singh and Shiv Pratap Shukla to reinforces his team. Along with them, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey of Bihar, Virendra Kumar of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan's Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and diplomat Hardeep Puri too will fill up vacancies that arose after six ministers were asked to resign to take other responsibilities. Besides, three more slots were vacant post-Manohar Parrikar was shifted to Goa as CM, Anil Madhav Dave's death and M Venkaiah Naidu was elevated to become Vice President of India. Their portfolios were shared by other ministers.
Like finance minister Arun Jaitley was holding the additional charge of the defence ministry, science and technology minister Dr Harsh Vardhan was looking after environment ministry and rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar was also taking care of urban development and textiles minister Smriti Irani stood up for information and broadcasting ministry.
Since late Thursday night, six ministers - Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjeev Balyan, Faggan Singh Kulaste, Kalraj Mishra, Mahendra Nath Pandey and Bandaru Dattatreya - had put in their papers giving the directions of BJP president Amit Shah.
In identifying these fresh names, Modi, said government sources, attempts to accomplish the "power of 4Ps for P" which stood for "Passion + Proficiency + Professional & Political acumen – for Progress". The BJP leader who will be inducted into the government is going to be strategically placed in key ministries, especially focusing on last mile delivery directly to the people. They come from varied walks of life, bringing in their unique professional perspective and proficiency to the Council and any of them also bring rich administrative and governance experience, said government sources.
Of the nine leaders from the BJP, only Puri and Kannanthanam are not members of either of two Houses of parliament. The two will have to become an MP in six months time after they take the oath. Due to the exit of Naidu and Parrikar, there are two vacancies in Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan and UP respectively.
However, portfolios for new faces and of some existing ministers is expected to be announced after the oath taking exercise slated at 10.30 am at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday.
Union Cabinet's re-making exercise became a challenge for Modi as who will be the new defence minister remained unclear till Saturday evening after surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari's expressed his reluctance to move on in the cabinet.
Senior ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari went into huddle at Rajnath Singh's house late last night in this regard. Suspense stretched since the same lot of senior union ministers again met at Singh's residence on Saturday.
Though Suresh Prabhu had offered to quit for train mishap, there's also still no clear word on who will be the next railway minister
The BJP two important NDA allies -- Shiv Sena and JDU -- interestingly stated Saturday that they have no information about the Sunday's Cabinet rejig and are hearing about it only through the media. "We have no information, no talks about it. We got information only from media," Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar told reporters in Patna. Shiv Sena chief Udhav Thackeray echoed similar views in Mumbai. "I have got news about the Cabinet expansion only from media. I have not enquired about it (from the central BJP leadership). I have neither received any communication from anybody nor are we hungry for power," Thackeray stated in Mumbai.
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