Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make the first major reshuffle of his Council of Ministers since the 2019 Lok Sabha election victory. However, there has been no official word on the Cabinet reshuffle. Top BJP leaders Sarbananda Sonowal, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narayan Rane are being touted as frontrunners for a berth in the Modi government. The BJP leaders arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday ahead of the reshuffle.
Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawarchand Gehlot was appointed as Karnataka governor ahead of the reshuffle, creating another vacancy in the Council of Ministers
The new ministers are likely to take oath at 6 pm today, according to sources. The new cabinet will be the "youngest-ever" in India's history with a record number of Other Backward Class (OBC) members and more women representation, reports suggested.
The speculations about the reshuffle were rife for quite some time now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held several rounds of discussion with senior party leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief Nadda, and general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh recently. PM Narendra Modi is learnt to have personally reviewed the performance of ministers.
The exercise comes against the backdrop of a massive review, which has stretched for weeks, undertaken by the BJP top brass of the works of Union ministers and the organisation against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Union Cabinet meetings scheduled to be held today have been cancelled. The CCEA meeting was scheduled to be held at 11 am, while the Union Cabinet meeting was scheduled at 11:05 am.
This came amid the buzz of an imminent reshuffle in the Union Cabinet.
The much-awaited cabinet reshuffle would be the first such rejig of the Narendra Modi cabinet after it was voted back to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, in a historic move, a separate 'Ministry of Co-operation' has been created by the Modi Government for realizing the vision of 'Sahkar se Samriddhi'. This ministry will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country.
