After an initial burst of out-of-the-box thinking, Narendra Modi chooses to play it safe and get his Cabinet’s caste arithmetic right ahead of key Assembly elections. Can the BJP still claim to be a party with a difference? asks Ramesh Ramachandran
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week is a long time
in politics and for the BJP four days were more than sufficient for the script
to play itself out. After installing his protégé Amit Shah as BJP president in
July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi waited for the afterglow of the BJP’s spectacular
win in Maharashtra and Haryana to set in before expanding his council of
ministers. Over the past weekend, he rewarded political turncoats from the
Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal with ministerial berths, shuffled his
pack of ministers by inducting new faces and put underperformers on notice all
at once so that he achieved the following:
• get the political (read caste) arithmetic right before
more states in the Hindi heartland go to polls;
• suitably reward the states that have stood by him and the
BJP;
• swing the balance of power on Raisina Hill, which houses
the North and South Blocks and, by extension, the Cabinet Committee on
Security, decisively in his favour; and
• keep his detractors within the party and in the RSS, the
BJP’s ideological mentor, in good humour.
Come Wednesday and the Modi-Shah duo carried forward the
unscrupulous ease and clinical precision with which they executed the expansion
of the Union Cabinet, to Mumbai, where they coerced the Shiv Sena into
submission and co-opted the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for ensuring that
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis easily won the trust vote in the Assembly.
Incidentally, this was the same ncp that Modi had described as a “Naturally
Corrupt Party” during the Maharashtra election campaign. No matter that in dumping
its idea of being a party with a difference for realpolitik, the BJP lent
itself to the charge of rank opportunism. In between expanding his Cabinet and
marshalling his resources in Maharashtra, Modi hosted former Kashmiri
separatist leader Sajjad Lone while Shah, for his part, welcomed Congress
leader Karan Singh’s younger son Ajatshatru Singh into the BJP fold as Modi and
Shah plotted their “Mission 44” by triggering a realignment of forces in the
run-up to the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir.
For the discerning, the events of those four days showcased
the best and worst sides of a party riding high on a winning streak. From
airlifting a Manohar Parrikar from Goa to head the defence ministry and
resurrecting a Suresh Prabhu from political oblivion by giving him the plum
portfolio of the railway ministry to (correctly) calling the Shiv Sena’s bluff
of severing all ties with the BJP, Modi and Shah worked in perfect unison to
outwit friends and foes alike. It was a hark back to 2005 when Modi expanded
his council of ministers in Gujarat after winning the 2002 Assembly election.
Then, as now, he relented and agreed to induct more ministers only after
fortifying his position by getting a man of his choice (Vajubhai Vala)
installed as BJP president in Gujarat. Then, as now, he gave ministerial berths
to some who were not necessarily seen as being his camp followers in a bid to
disarm his detractors within the party. And then, as now, he effected an
expansion of his council of ministers only out of compulsion. If, then, it was
BJP patriarch LK Advani who nudged Modi to induct more ministers into his
Cabinet, it was an appreciation of Shah’s political compulsions ahead of key
Assembly elections (Bihar in 2015, West Bengal in 2016 and Uttar Pradesh and
Punjab in 2017, among others) coupled with his own desire to salvage what
remains of his ambitious agenda of rationalising ministries in order to give to
the people “minimum government, maximum governance” that forced Modi to
undertake the exercise now.
Spot the difference
Modi took care to allot or reallocate portfolios in keeping
with an administrative logic that aims to reduce bureaucratic inertia and put
economic reforms on the fast track. The induction of an IIT-alumnus Parrikar as
the defence minister, a chartered accountant Prabhu as the railway minister or
a Harvard-educated former investment banker Jayant Sinha as the minister of
state for finance bears him out. However, for a prime minister who advised
Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis to worry about how to serve the people
rather than how to save his government, some of Modi’s own decisions smacked of
double standards and tantamounted to putting survival over principle. This,
when not so long ago, addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
Modi had held forth on his agenda for an aspirational India. “Earlier there was
a habit in our country to keep small groups happy. Divide in small groups and
keep your vote bank intact. This has changed now. The thinking of the young
generation of India has changed. The young generation of the country does not
want to live in parts. The change has come due to the youth,” he said,
explaining how he wanted to transcend caste and community considerations to
create opportunities for a neo-middle class.
Modi had aroused expectations of ushering in a change in the
way India would be governed but some of those hopes seem to have been belied by
his succumbing to tokenism, caste considerations or the ubiquitous identity or
vote-bank politics. Consequently, electoral considerations more than merit seem
to have been at play here. Again, in trying to project that he has given a fair
representation to Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in his council of
ministers, Modi inducted certain persons with criminal cases, including that of
attempted murder, registered against them. For instance, Ram Shankar Katheria
has a case of attempted murder, among others, against him. Also, Modi
perpetuated a stereotype that a Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was only fit for the
portfolio of minority affairs. Having said that, Modi has yet managed to keep dynasts
(such as Varun Gandhi, Anurag Thakur or Dushyant Singh) away from his Cabinet,
but one would still be forgiven to ask, “So what’s the difference between him
and others before him?” or “Can the BJP still claim to be a party with a
difference?”
The induction of certain ministers such as Vijay Sampla from
Punjab and Katheria from Uttar Pradesh, both Dalits, or Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti,
also from Uttar Pradesh, who hails from the most backward Nishad caste,
indicated a BJP strategy to woo and to broaden its appeal among the Dalits, the
backward classes and the intermediate castes. Clearly, the BJP has trained its
guns on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab by projecting Sampla as its
Dalit face in the state. Sampla is the mp from Hoshiarpur, which falls in the
Doaba region where the BSP claims to have a base. Sampla’s elevation should
also be seen as an indication of the BJP’s desire to branch out on its own in
Punjab. The BJP has already appointed Katheria, the minister of state in the
human resource development ministry, as the party in-charge for Punjab.
Birender Singh, a Jat and a former Congressman from Haryana,
was inducted in the Cabinet so that the Jat community did not feel alienated,
especially after the BJP’s win in the recent Haryana Assembly election on
account of the consolidation of the non-Jat vote. Sanwar Lal Jat, who belongs
to the Jat community from Rajasthan, found a place in the Cabinet, too.
With the expansion of the council of ministers, now there
are 66 ministers with 26 ministers of Cabinet rank (excluding Prime Minister
Modi), 13 ministers of state (independent charge) and 26 ministers of state.
The average age of the ministers is 59. (Earlier, there were 46 ministers in
Modi’s Cabinet. The number dropped by one, to 45, after Gopinath Munde’s
death.) Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have pride of place in the council of ministers
with 13 and eight ministers, respectively, followed by Maharashtra (six);
Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh (five each); Karnataka (four); Andhra Pradesh, Haryana
and Rajasthan (three each); Goa, Jharkhand and Punjab (two each); and Arunachal
Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha,
Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Delhi (one each.) The states that went
unrepresented were Kerala, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram,
Tripura and Meghalaya. If it should be of any consolation to the northeastern
states, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (or doner) has been
placed under the independent charge of Jitendra Singh, who is a minister of
state in the Prime Minister’s Office. Although one more woman (Sadhvi Niranjan
Jyoti) was inducted into the council of ministers with a minister of state
rank, the percentage of women as a whole in the Cabinet dropped from 26 percent
to 22 percent and in the entire council of ministers from 15 percent to 12
percent.
An essay in
comprehension
Unwittingly, Modi’s penchant for the unconventional failed
to live up to its billing, at least insofar as the “historic change” that he
had sought to introduce “in the formation of ministries” as a step towards
“smart governance” was concerned. Before he was sworn in as prime minister on
26 May, a press release issued on his behalf had said, “For the first time, he
adopted guiding principle of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ and
also rationalisation with a commitment to bring a change in the work culture and style of governance. It is a good
beginning in transforming entity of assembled ministries to organic ministries.
It will bring more coordination between different departments, will be more
effective and bring a speed in process. The focus is on convergence in the
activities of various ministries where one Cabinet minister will be heading a
cluster of ministries who are working in complimentary sectors. Mr Modi is
eventually aiming at smart governance where the top layers of government will
be downsized and there would be expansion at the grassroot level” (sic).
Accordingly, one saw certain key ministries bring grouped
together and placed under select ministers but it was dictated more by
personalities than processes. Consequently, Arun Jaitley was given the twin
(and disparate) portfolios of finance and defence, Ravi Shankar Prasad got law
and telecommunications and Prakash Javadekar came to head the ministries of
environment and information and broadcasting. To use an analogy, a chess player
would find it difficult to advance in a game if his repertoire of openings did
not evolve as the game progressed; similarly, Modi, much to his dismay, found
himself saddled with a Cabinet that did not quite shape up, or performed, the
way he would have liked, leaving him with little choice but to either make the
necessary corrections or go back to the drawing board.
Another innovative idea, that of bifurcating the Ministry of
External Affairs in order to have a dedicated department dealing with foreign
trade and commerce, which Modi himself had flagged in 2013, seems to have
fallen by the wayside. Among some of his other ideas that have not seen the
light of day are deputing officers from the states to Indian missions abroad
and designating a partner country for every state of the Indian Union depending
on geographical contiguity or economic linkages.
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Will Prabhu bring railways on track?
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adananda Gowda’s loss was Suresh Prabhu’s gain. Gowda was
one of two prominent casualties of the Cabinet expansion, the other being Dr
Harsh Vardhan. While Gowda was eased out from the railway ministry and moved to
the law ministry, Vardhan, who saw his health portfolio being taken away from
him and given to JP Nadda, was put in charge of the science and technology
ministry.
Prabhu (above) has the unenviable task of ushering in
much-needed reforms in the railway ministry. His challenge will be to succeed
where Gowda failed, namely, implement Modi’s reforms agenda by drawing up a
roadmap for attracting FDI in this sector and make the railways operationally
efficient.
Safety and customer service are Prabhu’s other immediate
priorities. “The prime minister has decided that the condition of railways has
to change. Our two focus areas will be customer service and railway safety as
passenger safety is increasingly becoming an area of concern,” he said soon
after taking charge of the ministry. The railways was an integrating factor for
the economy and “if we work in this direction, we can propel economic growth”,
he added for good measure.
The 61-year-old’s induction into the Cabinet was as dramatic
as it could get. Shunned by his own party, the Shiv Sena, over the past decade,
Prabhu was appointed by the Modi government as the head of an advisory group
constituted for integrated development of power, coal and renewable energy. He
is also the prime minister’s sherpa for the Group of 20 (G20) summit. On the
morning of 9 November, he quit the Shiv Sena to take up the membership of the
BJP and was subsequently sworn in as a Cabinet minister.
