NEW DELHI: As many as 12 members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers tendered their resignation before 43 people were sworn in as Union ministers by President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday evening.
Of the 12 ministers who were dropped, six were of cabinet rank while one (Santosh Gangwar) was a minister of state (MoS) (independent charge).
Out of the six cabinet ministers who were dropped, Thaawar Chand Gehlot was appointed as governor of Karnataka on Tuesday.
Moreover, including Gehlot’s social justice ministry, a total of four ministries were overhauled with both the cabinet as well as the ministers of the state getting omitted from the new council of Modi’s ministers.
Ravi Shankar PrasadLaw and justice, communications, electronics and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s sacking came as a surprise for many.
Both he and MoS Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre have been dropped from the ministry.
According to sources, Prasad could not deliver on the expansion of information technology in the Maoist areas.
Moreover, he was held responsible for “mishandling” the bitter war with the micro-blogging website Twitter.
The government’s clash with Twitter gave a bad name to the country, the sources said.
The sources said what went against Prasad was also the fact that he was one of the spokespersons for the Modi government but failed in effectively communicating its policies and stands on various issues.
Harsh VardhanHealth minister Harsh Vardhan seems to have faced the brunt for the Covid mismanagement during the second wave of the pandemic earlier this year.
He has been largely blamed for the scarcity of hospital beds and oxygen cylinders and also the allegedly flawed vaccination policy of the Modi government which saw thousands of deaths and Covid cases.
Prakash JavadekarThe other surprise resignation was of information and broadcasting (I&B) and environment and forest minister Prakash Javadekar.
Sources said his performance in the I&B and environment ministries were not up to the mark.
In fact, Javadekar had been allocated the human resource development ministry after Smriti Irani.
However, he was shifted from there as well and assigned I&B and environment and forest ministries, among others.
The environment is considered to be the prime minister’s favourite department.
Javadekar was directly under the PM’s watch.
As I&B minister and government’s spokesperson too, he seems to have failed to prove himself.
The sources said age has also played a role in removing Javadekar who turned 70 in January this year.
Along with Javadekar, his MoS and singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo was also dropped.
Supriyo got the axe for also not performing in the recently-concluded West Bengal election.
Despite being a Lok Sabha MP, he lost in the assembly election.
Ramesh Pokhriyal NishankBoth cabinet minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and his deputy Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre got the axe in the education ministry.
The sources said Nishank was removed because he could not take rapid steps to remove “distortions” in the history syllabus of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Nishank, a former chief minister of Uttarakhand, has also been relieved due to the assembly election in his state next year.
The BJP, which appears on a weak wicket in Uttarakhand, replaced Tirath Singh Rawat with Pushkar Singh Dhami as the state CM just last week.
Thaawar Chand GehlotThe fourth ministry which witnessed the shifting of both, the cabinet minister (Thaawar Chand Gehlot) and MoS (Rattan Lal Kataria) is social justice and empowerment.
Gehlot, who belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, was moved to Karnataka as governor while Kataria was dropped.
The sources said Gehlot, 73, too could not keep pace with PM Modi.
Moreover, age was on the wrong side.
Sadananda GowdaOne minister who has witnessed the most demotion in the last seven years of the Modi government is Sadananda Gowda.
After the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Gowda was allocated the significant railways portfolio.
However, he was soon shifted to the law and justice ministry.
Again he was further demoted to statistics and programme implementation ministry before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
However, just before the polls, data leaked which stated that the unemployment rate during the Modi government was the highest in 45 years.
This caused immense embarrassment to the BJP and the Modi government.
After the BJP won the 2019 elections, Gowda was allocated the chemicals and fertilisers ministry.
However, even here his performance was said to be not up to the mark which led to his ouster from the council of ministers.
Santosh GangwarSantosh Kumar Gangwar was dropped as MoS (independent charge) of the labour and employment ministry in the latest reshuffle.
According to sources, he was blamed for the migrant labourers’ crisis during the lockdown in the wake of the first wave of Covid pandemic last year.
Even the Supreme Court was forced to pass an adverse remark saying “the lackadaisical attitude of the labour minister is unpardonable”.
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