The New Ministry
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 27, 2014 -
In what has been hailed as the beginning of a new era in Indian politics, Narendra Damodardas Modi, who steered the course of his party (Bharatiya Janata Party) to come up with an unprecedented thumbing victory against the ruling Congress party in the recent 16th Lok Sabha elections by winning over 280 seats in a House of 545 members, has been sworn-in as the 15th Prime Minister of India to lead the administration of the Nation for the next five years, at least.
It has been indeed a prolific rise for the 63-year old man from a middle class Gujarati family, who, at the age of 6 years, is said to have helped his father to sell tea to passengers whenever an odd train came into the small Vadnagar station and later on joined Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1971 as a pracharak to help him grow politically.
By 2001, that boy who once sold tea to train passengers and worked as RSS pracharak became the Chief Minister of Gujarat and remained saddled in the post for the next four consecutive terms, and then on May 26, 2014, he has been sworn in as the 15th Prime Minister of the country along with 45 other leaders of BJP and NDA allies as Council of Ministers.
Downsizing the Council of Ministers to just 46 members including the Prime Minister himself, the leanest ever in the political history of the country, is said to be in tune with Modi’s agenda of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’.
So the Council of Ministers has been limited to only 24 Cabinet Ministers, 10 Ministers of State (Independent charge) and 12 Ministers of State this time.
This has led to a situation where many States including some of the Northeastern States, West Bengal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, etc, where BJP and its allies have done exceptionally well in the elections, were left out completely from representation in the new Government.
Even from the Northeastern region which comprises of eight States and where BJP has been trying to spread its wing, only two MPs namely 51-year old Sarvanand Sonowal from Assam, who is the president of the State Unit of BJP and 37-year old Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh, who, of course, has been representing the face of BJP in the largest Northeastern State since his election to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1994, have been inducted in the new Ministry.
On the other hand, limiting the size of the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi must have surely felt cheated by those elected MPs of the party as well as that of the allies, who have been hoping to get the blessing of Modi.
Take for instance; the case of Neiphiu Rio who quit the post of Chief Minister of Nagaland with the sole eye on becoming a Central Minister, but his name was completely missing from the list of Council of Ministers in spite of the hype generated by him and his party workers over the close rapport with Narendra Modi and the possible favour of a plump Ministerial berth. So sad.
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