Fresh blood

Fresh blood

The PM’s new team contributes to gender parity, respects professional qualifications and the youth.

The reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers ticks the three Ps — performance, politics and perception. It caters to the imperatives before the Prime Minister whether as near as the monsoon session of Parliament or as far as the 2024 general elections. It shows Narendra Modi in the light he prefers to be seen, as one who while facing criticism does not flinch from taking hard decisions. The new Council of Ministers represents a broad social and regional spectrum, contributes to gender parity, respects professional qualifications and the youth. The resignation of 12 Ministers is aimed at blunting the growing criticism around the country and within the Opposition ranks about certain Ministries failing to handle critical situations. The Health Ministry faced the brunt of criticism for its inability to tackle the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The IT Ministry allowed its uncompromising stand on making social media giants abide by the new IT rules to rage into a public confrontation between the Government and Twitter with the former being perceived as trying to muzzle the social media. The Education Ministry appeared undecided on the fate of class X and XII examinations and, thereafter, on an acceptable marking system. The other Ministers were either found wanting in discharging their duties or not succeeding in defending the Government. With the new faces in these Ministries, the Government can wave an “action taken” report before the Opposition when the Parliament session commences.

It is the politics of the reshuffle, however, that makes the exercise worthwhile from Modi’s point of view. At the practical level, the new entrants are the ruling party’s first salvo for the next round of Assembly elections, sending a message loud and clear that most social and regional groups find representation in the Modi Government. Uttar Pradesh, where the forthcoming Assembly election poses a singular and significant challenge to the BJP, reaps the maximum benefit. However, the true import of the reshuffle lies in Modi’s effort to fuse, for the first time, the ‘Mandal’ and ‘Kamandal’ politics in the Hindi heartland with a long-term electoral objective in mind. The OBCs, mostly of the non-Yadav variety, get the maximum representation as a social group. They have influential pockets in the Hindi-speaking States, especially UP and Bihar. The equation is simple: The Yadavs — Mulayam Singh in UP and Lalu Prasad in Bihar — were the original backward leaders to stop the march of the BJP into UP and Bihar. Their strategy of using ‘Mandal’ both as a tool to politically empower the backwards and to ideologically confront the ‘Kamandal’ revolutionalised politics in the Hindi heartland. The reshuffle’s focus on the OBCs can be viewed as an attempt to divide the ‘Mandal’ camp and line up the non-Yadav backward communities alongside the BJP to give the impression of a new social reality gaining ground in these States that send 120 MPs to the Lok Sabha.