Prime Minister Modi effected a major cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday. Prominent faces that have been dropped included Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan, Environment and I&PR Minister Prakash Javadekar and Ravishankar Prasad, Minister for lnformation Technology etc. In all 12 senior ministers are out. In a major social engineering exercise Modi has brought in 27 ministers from the OBC, 12 each from SC and ST. The average age of the present ministry has come down to 58. Hence this is also a major overhaul with an eye on 2024. As a commentator correctly stated this new ministry is more about politics and less about governance. It also is an attempt at perception management wherein non-performers have been dropped to make way for new faces who Modi expects will perform better than their predecessors.
The new Government will have 15 new cabinet ministers and 28 ministers of state with seven more women added to the Ministry. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was removed for his inept handling of Covid2.0 what with the crisis in oxygen management and cremation among others. The new Ministry with 43 new faces is a mega makeover. This is also Modi’s big leap as it’s not easy to remove senior ministers but Modi has done it keeping in view the need to repair the crisis of credibility his Government has suffered in the past year since Covid struck. What will matter is also the allocation of portfolios. Who gets what and how the person handles his/her portfolio is crucial for the image of the Government. What is also important is the agenda setting of the new Ministry. Delivery on healthcare services, education and economic relief are crucial during and after the pandemic and these need careful handling. Indeed, these will be addressed by changing the current way of doing things and will require an annual review so that they lend themselves to course correction. For instance, Health and Chemicals will now be held by a single minister. This is to address the lacunae experienced during the pandemic when the crisis to procure oxygen led to unnecessary deaths.
Whether the new government is simply a makeover of politics or a governance makeover remains to be seen. But there is certainly an influx of talent and more intellectual heft in this new dispensation and better regional representation as well. In the last Ministry, Urban Development and Civil Aviation could not make much headway. A change of faces in these ministries will boost productivity and get the Modi Government election ready in 2024. This after all is the ultimate goal.
