This seems to be a clear indication of an impending cabinet expansion-cum-reshuffle. The Union Cabinet could have 81 ministers at most. Currently, there are 29 cabinet ministers, five ministers of state with independent charge and 34 ministers of state — this comes to total of 68, which is 84% of the full capacity.
Also Read: BJP fields fresh candidates for Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha polls; drops Hardeep Puri, seven others
Union Cabinets usually have around 75 ministers.
In the BJP’s list of Rajya Sabha candidates announced on Monday, Puri and MoS BL Verma have not been renominated.
With this, four Union Ministers from the 2024 cabinet of Modi government have been denied Rajya Sabha seats so far.
While Puri was serving his second term, Verma, Kurien and Bittu were in their first terms in the Upper House. And if Puri resigns, then there will be no Sikh representative in the Union cabinet, which already doesn’t have a Muslim or Christian face. Union minister Kiren Rijiju, a Buddhist, represents the minorities.With these changes, already around 40% of the Cabinet rank ministers (around 12), are holding charge of more than one ministry, including two having charge of three ministries.
Ministers holding charge of more than one ministry are Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Shivraj Chouhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, Manohar Lal, Pralhad Joshi, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and G Kishan Reddy.
Modi 3.0 is reaching its half term and a cabinet reshuffle seems to be on the cards as most of the ministers from Modi 2.0 have been retained.
