After economic team rejig, key policy changes on govt agenda

Having proved himself as a 'rock star' abroad and a vote-getting machine at home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now going to do what people are telling him to do.

Take policy decisions that cannot be put off any longer.

The first of these is a Cabinet reshuffle likely by the end of this month - after Diwali.

A brace of decisions on economic policy, including diesel pricing, disinvestment and gas pricing, will follow personnel changes carried out on Thursday.

A top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) source explained it was important to change the faces before changing policy.

"Already people are saying that our government is doing what the previous government left undone. One way of clearing the air is to change the people who were identified with the previous government: Then the policy rollout will also have a stamp of novelty," he said.

More changes in the department of banking and decisions on crucial appointments like the central vigilance commissioner and a new cabinet secretary are also likely.

The contours of a Cabinet reshuffle have not even been discussed yet but the gaps are obvious.

Expecting victory in Haryana and Maharashtra, the party will want to accommodate people from these two states.

Rajasthan is grossly under-represented.

The new interlocutor between the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Krishna Gopal, is likely to take over on October 23.

This will have its own impact on government-party relations.

The role of MPs and the organisation in running the government is currently restricted. Gopal will address this skewed relationship.

In the next few months, a new power dynamic in the BJP should be evident.

The party is confident the setback of the by-elections, where the BJP lost significantly, will be irrelevant once the Haryana and Maharashtra results are out.

The two men who finally decided to dump allies and go it alone in the state polls - Narendra Modi and Amit Shah - are likely to gain enormously in credibility and clout if the elections go the way they had planned.

This will add heft to policy decision that will follow.