BJP not to share Speaker's post, Key portfolios
Modi giving final touches to list of Ministers to be inducted
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving final touches to his new Council of Ministers to be sworn-in along with him later this week. According to informed sources, the ministerial team would be quite large.
Modi has already tasked BJP president J P Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah to talk to allies to finalize names to be inducted. The 3-member group is also talking to BJP's state leaders in this regard.
It has also emerged that none of the allies has sought the Speaker's post or key portfolios like the Home, Defence, Finance & External Affairs. Of course, they have their regional aspirations for faster development. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is more keen to hold early Assembly polls in his state along with Haryana and Maharashtra along with his demand to be granted special status outside the ambit of the NITI Aayog. He may be wanting tweaking of the “Agniveer” scheme too.
A formula of inducting ministers from BJP's 16 allies is being worked out and one member from each of the parties will be taken and those having more than 4-5 Mps in the Lok Sabha may get two to three berths.
Since 22 Union Ministers including four Cabinet Ministers (Arjun Munda, Smriti Irani, RK Singh and Mahendra Nath Pandey) lost Lok Sabha polls, the BJP will see a large number of new faces. It is learnt that many of the strong regional leaders such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan and a couple of other former Chief Ministers may be inducted. Since a number of state Assemblies will be going to polls in 2024-25, heavyweights may have to be inducted.
Sources in the BJP also affirm that Modi has skills to run a coalition government though he has no such experience during his 23 years of running governments in Gujarat & Delhi. He showed tremendous flexibility and retreated on the Land Acquisition Bill and Farm laws.
