Amid cabinet reshuffle buzz, PM Modi holds another meeting with party stalwarts
15 June, 2021 | Rakshanda Afrin
On June 14, PM Modi met Union ministers such as Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, along with BJP president JP Nadda as per sources. Many are speculating that this could be an exercise before an expe...
In the absence of an official announcement, the contemplations over the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meetings with a line of important Union ministers and BJP chief suggest about cabinet reshuffling soon.
On June 14, Monday PM met Union ministers such as Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, along with BJP president JP Nadda as per sources. Also last week, Modi had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Jitender Singh. Furthermore, PM has been holding in-person meetings with Union Ministers since the last one week seemingly to take work update done by the government over the last two years in addition to discussing other important issues.
These meetings were called after the second wave of Covid cases at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, the official residence of the Prime Minister and have lasted for nearly 5 hours. Meetings were attended by both Union Ministers and Union Ministers of state in different groups with BJP chief Nadda present in most of the meetings.
The meeting attended by Singh, Gadkari, Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda and Minister of State V Muraleedharan, alongwith others, is the fifth in the series and may be the last, a source said.
Other participants of meetings were cabinet ministers or ministers of state 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, external affairs and environment. Sources further reported that meetings with the Union ministers were preceded by meetings between Modi and presidents of various wings of the BJP and party general secretaries.
The sudden increase in often extended meetings with party and government stalwarts instead of just a weekly virtual cabinet meeting and a monthly council meeting chaired by the prime minister, has given all the reasons to political observers and party insiders to think that this could be an exercise before an expected cabinet expansion and reshuffle, but there has been no official word yet.