Tuesday’s cabinet changes clearly show that the ministers not performing or trying to become larger than their work will not be tolerated. It also signals that, prime minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the RSS, are on the same pitch in managing the affairs of this NDA government.
When almost everybody thought that Tuesday’s cabinet changes will be just an expansion keeping in mind the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, prime minister Narendra Modi sprang another surprise by bringing in big changes in important portfolios like education and law.
Sticking to his style, he kept the rejig and announcements of the new portfolios hanging till late in the day. But, the message from the changes is very clear.
The ministers handling any ministry must deliver, should not try to become more important than their work, and when it comes to managing the affairs of this NDA government — PM Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS, are all on the same pitch.
The noise around the human resource development (HRD) ministry handled by Smriti Irani was too much, which at times was taking away the attention from the good work done by the government in other areas, especially social sectors.
So, she has been shunted to a calm textile ministry, though it would not be prudent to project that it is a non-significant ministry.
In her place, in the HRD ministry, a more acceptable and experienced politician in the handling of the political and parliamentary affairs, Prakash Javadekar, who has also been elevated to the cabinet rank, has come in, to keep the atmosphere non-controversial, but amenable to the RSS thought process.
Javadekar, obviously, has a tougher job at hand than his earlier one as environment minister, where he has done a fairly good work, but he is better suited for the balancing of interests that is required in the handling of the HRD ministry.
Law minister D V Sadananda Gowda has been shifted to a low-profile Statistics and Programme Implementation ministry and the law portfolio has now been given to Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was handling both Communications and IT, but will relinquish the charge of communications to Manoj Sinha.
Similarly, Chaudhary Birender Singh will be handling the ministry of steel and mines in place of Narendra Singh Tomar, who takes over his earlier job of the minister for rural development, panchayati raj and drinking water and sanitation.
Power minster Piyush Goyal and petroleum minster Dharmendra Pradhan are doing good work, but by not promoting them, it has been indicated that they need to do more.
Of course, there are few changes aimed at better allocation of work among the top ministers like giving the I&B ministry to M Venkaiah Naidu, which was under finance minister Arun Jaitley and the job of managing the Parliamentary affairs to Ananth Kumar, which was under Naidu, but the overall changes and re-allocation of ministries conforms to the basic principle of performance and low-profile approach, adopted for deciding on them.
The biggest takeaway for the ministers, therefore, from this reshuffle is: keep a low-profile and do your work diligently.