Cabinet rejig on cards? Modi meets Shah, Nadda

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held deliberations with Home Minister Amit Shah and Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda on Friday amid speculation about a reshuffle in the Union Cabinet, an exercise Modi has not undertaken since forming the government for a second time in May 2019.

There is also a growing buzz about the Cabinet expansion in Uttar Pradesh after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met the BJP top brass during his two-day visit to the national capital.

Sources, however, added that Modi has been meeting Union ministers in different batches of late, and Nadda has also been present there.

Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Jitendra Singh, besides BJP general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh were also part of the deliberations on Friday.

The deliberations among the top BJP leaders at the prime minister's residence came a day after Shah also met party allies from Uttar Pradesh, including Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel who was a minister in the first Modi government but was not inducted in the next.

There has been no official word from the party on these deliberations.

The BJP has of late engaged in the review of its organisation and government works in different states.

Nadda had also held a meeting with the party general secretaries where, besides the relief work carried out by the saffron organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, its performance in the recent assembly polls were reviewed.

With the party now gearing up for the next round of assembly polls in five states early next year, including in all important Uttar Pradesh, it is expected to take various measures to bolster its social equation.

Of these five states, the BJP is in power in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, besides Uttar Pradesh, while the Congress is at the helm in Punjab.

Santhosh, who has often been part of the confabulation among the BJP top brass, had recently visited Uttarakhand and Goa besides Uttar Pradesh.

Besides Adityanath, another state leader who had recently met Modi, Shah and Nadda is Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of opposition in West Bengal, a key state in the BJP's political schemes where it suffered a setback on Friday as its national vice president Mukul Roy joined the Trinamool Congress.

Sources said the party leadership may move to take a series of measures to reinvigorate its state organisations and governments, and a reshuffle of the Union Cabinet can be a part of the larger exercise.

Modi's meetings with ministers should be seen in connection with a series of deliberations the party has undertaken at the national and the state level, they said.

Three such meetings of Union ministers with the prime minister have been held so far at the latter's residence, and they have lasted for hours, sources said.

A presentation was also given by several ministers, they added.

So far, ministers -- both cabinet and their deputies -- holding the charge of agriculture, rural development, animal husbandry and fishing, tribal affairs, urban development, culture, statistics and programme implementation, civil aviation, railways, food and consumer affairs, Jal Shakti, petroleum, steel and environment were among those who were called for the meetings, they said.