Union Cabinet expansion live: Meet predecessors, learn from their experience, PM Modi tells new ministers

PM Narendra Modi’s decision to induct LJP leader Pashupati Kumar Paras as a Cabinet minister and giving him the charge of food processing ministry has come as a major blow to Chirag Paswan who had claimed that he was aligned with BJP while putting up candidates against JD(U) in the Bihar assembly election.

A record number of 27 representatives of OBCs have been included in the Modi ministry, a significant political move which reduces the gap between their share in power at the Centre with that of all the “unreserved” categories put together. The decision was made keeping in mind the coming UP polls and well-known plans of principal opponents — SP and BSP — to engineer social coalitions to take on BJP.

Heavy representation for Maharashtra in Wednesday’s Cabinet reshuffle and the induction of Narayan Rane in particular indicated that BJP might be preparing to go it alone in Mumbai and Maharashtra in 2024 without seeking an early rapprochement with Shiv Sena though speculation about a patch-up has been rife of late.

Four first-time Lok Sabha MPs from West Bengal — Shantanu Thakur, John Barla, Nishith Pramanik and Subhash Sarkar were inducted into the Union council of ministers on Wednesday, a move indicating that BJP’s hasn’t lost focus on the state after Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress returned to power for a third successive term. Two existing ministers of state — Babul Supriyo and Debasri Chaudhury — were dropped in the rejig.

Wednesday’s mega reshuffle is a message signalling full support to regional leaders like Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh and B S Yesdyurappa in Karnataka, who have faced challenges but have earned the backing of the BJP brass.

The exit of 12 ministers came as a surprise element as well-known faces like health minister Harsh Vardhan, information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad left the government on Wednesday. The factors that led to their exit seem to range from slow pace of meeting targets to inadequate communication of policy and political goals in respective ministries.