New Delhi: In a major disappointment, Sushma Swaraj, one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP, was among seven ministers of the previous Council of Ministers to be dropped in the second term. Sushma, who was External Affairs Minister in the erstwhile NDA government, took a seat in the audience at PM Modi’s oath ceremony, an indication that she will sit out of a BJP government for the first time.
The 67-year-old was extremely active on social media and popular for her timely interventions in situations of human distress. Since morning the buzz was that she will be reinstated as Minister of External Affairs. She was also absent at a tea party hosted by PM Modi in the morning for new ministers. Sushma, a nine-time parliamentarian, did not contest the election citing health reasons. In his known shock-and-awe style, PM Modi also dropped key economic ministers in the previous NDA government — Suresh Prabhu, Jayant Sinha & Manoj Sinha. Also missing in the new Council were Maneka Gandhi, JP Nadda, Mahesh Sharma and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Of the lot, Nadda is tipped for the post of party president, in place of Amit Shah.
Olympian Rajyavardhan Ra-thore will be conspicuous by his absence. The 49-year-old did not receive the all-important phone call that was the confirmation anyone needed on whether he was in or out of the ministry. Later, he was seen sitting in the audience rather than in the ministerial line-up waiting to take oath. Rajyavardhan Rathore, a former Colonel in the army, is a BJP parliamentarian from Rajasthan who won a second term.
Maneka Gandhi is out for the time being because she will be the pro tem or interim Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The 62-year-old BJP leader has been a minister in four governments and was Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development in the last cabinet. As pro tem Speaker, she will administer the oath of office to the newly elected Lok Sabha MPs and also preside over the first meeting of the Lok Sabha, in which the Speaker will be elected. Prabhu had held the key portfolios of Railways and then Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation in the previous dispensation. He was shifted from the Railways Ministry after a series of mishaps, which was seen as an ignominious exit. He neither has a political base, nor a political face.
Mahesh Sharma, the controversial Minister for Tourism and Culture in the previous government, too is out. So is Uma Bharti, the saffron face of the BJP. Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance in the previous government, has been also omitted. His father Yashwant Sinha is one of the petitioners in the Rafale case in the Supreme Court. Also, Yashwant Sinha has been extremely critical of Modi. Of the lot, the most surprising omission was that of the high-profile Minister of Communications (Independent Charge) and Minister of State (MoS) for Railways in the previous government Manoj Sinha. Radha Mohan Singh was a surprise entry as a cabinet rank minister for agriculture in the previous regime. He was perceived as one of the under-performing ministers and failed to find ways to bail out agriculture from the crisis it is steeped in. Farm crisis, in fact, worsened under his watch.
