With an eye on next Assembly polls, Modi govt prepares for Cabinet reshuffle

It may take place after ongoing Budget session of Parliament ends on April 12

With an eye on the next set of Assembly polls, the Narendra Modi government is looking at a Cabinet rejig. The reshuffle is likely to take place after the ongoing Budget session of Parliament ends on April 12.

Elections are scheduled for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat by December 2017, Karnataka in May 2018 and in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan by the end of 2018.

The BJP is confident of wresting power from the Congress in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. It is also certain of retaining Gujarat. 

The party is keen to do well in the Delhi civic polls, scheduled for April. “Didn't you notice the PM reaching out to the middle class in his speech on Sunday?” said a source close to the top party leadership.

The Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan are also important in the context of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Assembly elections to these states are scheduled barely five months before the national polls. 

In 2014, the BJP had won 27 of Madhya Pradesh’s 29 Lok Sabha seats, 10 of Chhattisgarh’s 11 and all of Rajasthan’s 25 seats.

In Madhya Pradesh, incumbent BJP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan remains popular. But the BJP’s top leadership is of the view that at least one of the other two states, if not both, could do with new faces at the helm.

A vacancy in the Union Cabinet has arisen with Manohar Parrikar quitting the defence ministry. He was sworn in as the Goa chief minister on Tuesday. For now, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has additional responsibility of the defence portfolio.

Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh was minister of state for commerce and industry in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He moved to Chhattisgarh as its chief minister in December 2003, and has had an unbroken tenure.

Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje was also a minister of state in the Vajpayee Cabinet. She handled several portfolios, including that of minister of state for external affairs, before moving to Rajasthan as the chief minister from 2003 to 2008. The BJP lost the 2008 assembly polls. It made a comeback in 2013.

Party sources said the Cabinet Committee on Security, or the CCS, could see more than one change in the months to come. The CCS, headed by the PM, comprises the defence, home, external affairs and finance ministers.

Apart from filling the vacancy at the defence ministry, the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance also needs to decide upon its nominee for Rashtrapati Bhavan. The presidential elections are due by July.

“This won’t be the first time one of these chief ministers would be prodded to come to Delhi,” said the party source, indicating how the situation after the Uttar Pradesh electoral triumph has altered as now Modi is not just the party’s, but the country’s unassailable leader.