When Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath with just 45 people in his council of ministers in May, it seemed like he was coming through on his promise of “minimum government” almost literally. His predecessor, Manmohan Singh, began his tenure in 2004 with 68 ministers, a number that over the course of his decade in power would swell to 78. As of Sunday, though, a lot of the narratives and spin that accompanied Modi’s first cabinet appear to have been shed.
Modi inducted 21 new faces in a cabinet expansion, taking the total number of ministers to 66. And that wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Amid turmoil over whether the Shiv Sena would join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra, the party announced that Suresh Prabhu would be joining the Cabinet – as a BJP member. The hits didn’t stop coming until midnight, when the government finally put out the official list of portfolios.
Here’s a quick look at what’s new:
Not so compact
Minimum can mean different things. Initially it meant 45, now it means 66. The word put out by BJP people in May when the first cabinet was being set up was that Modi’s would be the first attempt at “small government”. Cluster ministries and a trim cabinet was supposed to ensure this would happen, but now the list is only two short of the size of the council of ministers when Manmohan Singh came to power.
Acche Din Spin: You were complaining about Modi centralising all that power? Look, now he’s delegating it much more. And it’s still smaller than any cabinet in the past 10 years.
Not so technocratic
Solid ministers with a larger emphasis on what the bureaucracy is doing, the BJP leaders insisted in May. Instead, now we’ve got new faces that may have more to do with elections that are coming up – more ministers for Bihar, Jharkhand, a leader brought in from West Bengal – than based on pure ability to govern.
Acche Din Spin: The budgeting process is about to begin to prepare next year’s document. More hands will be needed on deck for that, and diversity is always good.
Ayurveda-Yoga minister
The new government now has a separate Minister of State, Independent Charge, for AYUSH. That’s Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy which used to be just a department before, but now is a separate ministry of its own. Shripad Yesso Naik will hold this charge, in addition to being MoS, Health and Family Welfare.
Acche Din Spin: We promised Ayurgenomics in our manifesto, this is how we’ll deliver.
Signs of health
Dr Harsh Vardhan didn’t exactly cover himself with glory as health minister over the last few months. So it might not have come as a surprise that he was shifted to the Science and Technology ministry. (His willingness to take on the tobacco lobby might have had something to do with it also). But few were expecting to see who his replacement would be.
JP Nadda, newly inducted minister of cabinet rank, will be in charge of the health ministry. This seems particularly galling because it was Nadda who, in letters to the same ministry, had attempted to convince the health minister to remove the whistleblower in the All India Institute for Medical Sciences corruption scam. At the time Nadda had even asked the ministry to stop all corruption investigations against AIIMS. Now he won’t have to write to any minister.
Acche Din Spin: Nadda has proven himself in the party and in the AIIMS case he was simply getting the government to notice alleged irregularities.
Legal switch
Vardhan is not the only one who appears to have disappointed his boss. DV Sadananda Gowda, who was the railway minister, will now be in charge of law. The railways post, for the longest time considered a “coalition post” that would go to a party that wasn’t ruling, almost remains that way. Suresh Prabhu, a former Shiv Sena leader and Modi’s G-20 “sherpa”, has been given the railways ministry after it was announced he would be joining the BJP no matter what Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray decides.
Acche Din Spin: Prabhu proved himself in the last National Democratic Alliance, so he is the right person to have for a ministry that requires investment.
Bureau chief
Arun Jaitley was supposed to get some relief after it became clear that Manohar Parrikar, the former chief minister of Goa, was coming to New Delhi to take the defence portfolio off his hands. Instead, in addition to finance and the corporate affairs ministry, Jaitley has also been given additional charge of the Information and Broadcasting ministry. This has already caused a snigger or two in the capital, because Jaitley is well known for having close connections with many in the press ‒ so running I&B won’t be that much of a challenge for him.
At the same time, he’s also managed to build a fairly useful set of backups: Rajyavardhan Rathore will assist him at I&B as a minister of state, but more importantly, he not only retains Nirmala Seetharaman as a minister of state of the commerce ministry, he also adds Jayant Sinha, a former investment strategist and son of Yashwant Sinha, as a minister of state, finance.
Acche Din Spin: Since Jaitley has help thanks to Sinha, he should be able run I&B with not too much trouble.
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Modi inducted 21 new faces in a cabinet expansion, taking the total number of ministers to 66. And that wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Amid turmoil over whether the Shiv Sena would join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra, the party announced that Suresh Prabhu would be joining the Cabinet – as a BJP member. The hits didn’t stop coming until midnight, when the government finally put out the official list of portfolios.
Here’s a quick look at what’s new:
Not so compact
Minimum can mean different things. Initially it meant 45, now it means 66. The word put out by BJP people in May when the first cabinet was being set up was that Modi’s would be the first attempt at “small government”. Cluster ministries and a trim cabinet was supposed to ensure this would happen, but now the list is only two short of the size of the council of ministers when Manmohan Singh came to power.
Acche Din Spin: You were complaining about Modi centralising all that power? Look, now he’s delegating it much more. And it’s still smaller than any cabinet in the past 10 years.
Not so technocratic
Solid ministers with a larger emphasis on what the bureaucracy is doing, the BJP leaders insisted in May. Instead, now we’ve got new faces that may have more to do with elections that are coming up – more ministers for Bihar, Jharkhand, a leader brought in from West Bengal – than based on pure ability to govern.
Acche Din Spin: The budgeting process is about to begin to prepare next year’s document. More hands will be needed on deck for that, and diversity is always good.
Ayurveda-Yoga minister
The new government now has a separate Minister of State, Independent Charge, for AYUSH. That’s Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy which used to be just a department before, but now is a separate ministry of its own. Shripad Yesso Naik will hold this charge, in addition to being MoS, Health and Family Welfare.
Acche Din Spin: We promised Ayurgenomics in our manifesto, this is how we’ll deliver.
Signs of health
Dr Harsh Vardhan didn’t exactly cover himself with glory as health minister over the last few months. So it might not have come as a surprise that he was shifted to the Science and Technology ministry. (His willingness to take on the tobacco lobby might have had something to do with it also). But few were expecting to see who his replacement would be.
JP Nadda, newly inducted minister of cabinet rank, will be in charge of the health ministry. This seems particularly galling because it was Nadda who, in letters to the same ministry, had attempted to convince the health minister to remove the whistleblower in the All India Institute for Medical Sciences corruption scam. At the time Nadda had even asked the ministry to stop all corruption investigations against AIIMS. Now he won’t have to write to any minister.
Acche Din Spin: Nadda has proven himself in the party and in the AIIMS case he was simply getting the government to notice alleged irregularities.
Legal switch
Vardhan is not the only one who appears to have disappointed his boss. DV Sadananda Gowda, who was the railway minister, will now be in charge of law. The railways post, for the longest time considered a “coalition post” that would go to a party that wasn’t ruling, almost remains that way. Suresh Prabhu, a former Shiv Sena leader and Modi’s G-20 “sherpa”, has been given the railways ministry after it was announced he would be joining the BJP no matter what Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray decides.
Acche Din Spin: Prabhu proved himself in the last National Democratic Alliance, so he is the right person to have for a ministry that requires investment.
Bureau chief
Arun Jaitley was supposed to get some relief after it became clear that Manohar Parrikar, the former chief minister of Goa, was coming to New Delhi to take the defence portfolio off his hands. Instead, in addition to finance and the corporate affairs ministry, Jaitley has also been given additional charge of the Information and Broadcasting ministry. This has already caused a snigger or two in the capital, because Jaitley is well known for having close connections with many in the press ‒ so running I&B won’t be that much of a challenge for him.
At the same time, he’s also managed to build a fairly useful set of backups: Rajyavardhan Rathore will assist him at I&B as a minister of state, but more importantly, he not only retains Nirmala Seetharaman as a minister of state of the commerce ministry, he also adds Jayant Sinha, a former investment strategist and son of Yashwant Sinha, as a minister of state, finance.
Acche Din Spin: Since Jaitley has help thanks to Sinha, he should be able run I&B with not too much trouble.
