Rewarding loyalty and promoting the younger generation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also accommodated all Bharatiya Janata Party heavyweights of his generation and representatives of key pre-poll allies, avoiding major surprises in the council of ministers.
Sushma Swaraj — not considered to be close to Mr Modi — has been inducted as Minister for External Affairs, the third in the pecking order of power at the Centre, after the Home Minister. However, Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley, key enthusiasts who helped Mr. Modi overcome the many hurdles through his campaign to become the 15th Prime Minister of India, will constitute his core team.
Smriti Irani, 38-year-old Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, has been a appointed a Cabinet minister while Nirmala Sitharaman, an effective spokesperson but not a member of parliament, and Dharmendra Pradhan, who, as general secretary in-charge of Bihar delivered the State for the party, have been inducted as Ministers of State with independent charge. There are seven women in the council, six of them in the Cabinet.
In picking his ministers, Mr. Modi seemed intent on demonstrating that he is his own man, on the lines of his campaign presenting himself as the BJP strongman who single-handedly changed the destiny of Gujarat. Long-time allies Shiv Sena and Akali Dal, and the important partner in the south, the Telugu Desam Party have been taken on board, but on Mr. Modi’s terms, and newfound partners in Bihar, Ramvilas Paswan and Upendra Kuswaha — who represent powerful caste lobbies — have been humoured with an eye on the state elections in 2015. Maharashtra and Haryana, two States that go to polls this year, have been represented tactically in the council.
While L.K. Advani, who served as Deputy Prime Minister under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and who was the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2009, could not have been expected to serve under Mr. Modi, the exclusion of Murli Manohar Joshi was an expression of the generational shift in 2014. The risks the BJP could not take before the election Mr. Modi was ready to take now. But by including Ms. Swaraj and Venkaiah Naidu, both considered close to Mr. Advani, and Nitin Gadkari, a favourite of the RSS leadership, Mr. Modi demonstrated an ability to be accommodative.
Mr. Modi picked the Ministry also to emphasise the national sweep that the BJP has achieved in this election. Pon Radhakrishnan from Kanyakumari, India’s southernmost constituency, Jitendra Singh from Uddhampur in Jammu and Kashmir and Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh are BJP Ministers in the council.
