Team Modi Rejig: Will AP, Telangana be ignored again?

New Delhi is agog with the buzz that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to rejig his cabinet. If sources serve us right, as many as 27 new ministers would be inducted into Narendra Modi’s team. But, several non-performing ministers may be shown the door, the sources said.

A reshuffle has become necessary for three reasons. Several of the coalition partners have left the NDA. For instance Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akalidal have quit the NDA. JDU, which is an NDA partner but did not join the cabinet may join now. Secondly, some key ministers like Ram Vilas Paswan and Suresh Agadi have passed away. Currently, their ministries are being handled by other ministers, who are feeling over-burdened with work. They need to be relieved of the burden.

Thirdly, several key leaders at the state level, who have made sacrifices for the party, need to be accommodated. Former deputy CM of Bihar Sushil Modi, former Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal, former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane and Madhya Pradesh strongman Jyotiraditya Scindia need to be rewarded for their role in strengthening the party.

With elections to UP, Goa, Punjab and other states round the corner, Modi has to give adequate representation to the poll-bound states. Especially, UP needs better representation and caste equations have to be addressed ahead of elections. So, a rejig is on cards sooner than later.

The names that are doing rounds are – Jyotiraditya Scindia (Madhya Pradesh), Sushil Modi (Bihar), Bhupendra Yadav (Rajasthan), Sarbananda Sonowal (Assam), Kailas Vijayavargiya (Madhya Pradesh), Narayan Rane (Maharashtra), Pritam Munde (Maharashtra), Sayyad Jafar Islam (Party’s official spokesperson), Anil Jain,, Swatantra Dev Singh (UP), Varun Gandhi, Pankaj Chowdary, Anupriya Patel (all UP), Ashvini Vaishnav, Bijayanta Panda (Odisha), Minakshi Lekhi (Delhi), Rajiv Chandrasekhar (Karnataka) and Jamyang Tsering Namgyal (Ladakh).

Interestingly, there are no names from either Telangana or Andhra Pradesh.!!