After Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Union Council of Ministers, it was the turn of nearly a dozen or so Ministers of State in the NDA to get into a huddle with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.
At a meeting, called at the residence of Minister of State (independent charge) for Textiles Santosh Gangwar, 11 other Ministers of State, including General (retd.) V.K. Singh, Col. (retd.) Rajyavardhan Rathore and Krishnapal Gujjar, met with RSS second-in-command Suresh “bhaiyyaji” Joshi and joint general secretary — in charge of co-ordination between party, government and the RSS — Krishna Gopal.
Mr. Gangwar confirmed that the meeting had taken place but refused to divulge any details. Another Minister said it was a “regular review meeting” of the work of Ministers of State, most of whom suffered from lack of official delegation of duties.
This meeting, say sources, can be seen as a continuation of a series of presentations asked for by Mr. Modi from Ministers of State. Traditionally Ministers of State have suffered from lack of work allocation, and Mr. Modi had been keen to address the issue.
Some Ministers have adequately delegated work to juniors such as Jayant Sinha (Finance) and Rajyavardhan Rathore (Information and Broadcasting), while others such as Upendra Kushwaha (Human Resource Development) languish without much work.