Cabinet expansions are generally political exercises with a minor consideration to rewarding performing ministers and dropping non-performers. Tuesday’s expansion of the Union Cabinet is not an exception to this. It has been done clearly with an eye on upcoming polls in the crucial states of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, which are also critical to the BJP’s prospects in the 2019 general elections. The objective is clear: project an inclusive face of the BJP and shed its image as a party of the upper castes. The party’s brains trust consisting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and general secretary Amit Shah seems to have given careful thought to achieving a fine balance in the expansion in terms of caste and State representation. A fourth of the new inductees are from the marginalised castes and as many as seven of them are from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttarakhand. Whether or not the strategy reflects political astuteness, only time and the results of the ensuing State elections will tell. But the expansion certainly disappoints when compared with the standards and slogans publicly espoused by the party and Modi himself.
Take, for instance, the promise of a lean government and Modi’s slogan coined during the 2014 elections: Minimum government, maximum governance. After Tuesday’s expansion, the council of ministers will be 78 strong, including the Prime Minister. That is very close to the Constitution mandated cap of 82. How’s this a lean government? The expansion also does not seem to reflect the performance assessment exercises of the council of ministers conducted by the Prime Minister. Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan were widely tipped for promotion to Cabinet rank given their good performance over the last two years. Yet, their claims seem to have been ignored while Prakash Javadekar, who has been busy granting environmental clearances to stalled projects, has been bumped up the ladder. It is also perhaps not a coincidence that these two ministers also enjoyed a strong presence in media headlines. Is this a message to ministers to pipe down and not hanker after publicity?
Modi has been careful not to disturb the equilibrium and stability at the top by leaving his top four ministers holding the key portfolios of home, finance, defence and external affairs, undisturbed. That none of those holding key economic portfolios has been dropped is also a signal of continuity given that there was a perception that some of them could do better. Of course, the final word has to await details of the portfolio allocation following the entry of the new ministers. Except for Vijay Goel, who was a Union minister earlier, and a couple of others who have held portfolios in their States, the new pool of ministers is largely inexperienced in governance and is therefore an unknown quantity. But that is only to be expected given that the BJP, unlike the Congress, has never been in power with a majority of its own at the Centre.