Cabinet exits not connected to merit but requirement of system: PM Modi in Council meet

A day after reshuffling the cabinet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chaired a meeting with the new Union of Ministers. As per sources, in the meeting, he underlined that while the additions in the cabinet were on merit, the subtractions were not on the basis of demerits. As many as 12 Ministers, including Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar, had been dropped in the landmark rejig that also saw the inclusion of 43 Ministers, including Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sarbananda Sonowal. Taking the total number of Ministers in the cabinet to 77. 

'New Ministers should learn from old in the cabinet': PM Modi

Sources also suggest that PM Modi in the meeting asked the new members of the cabinet to learn from the old ones. It is pertinent to mention here that many of the Union Ministers, like Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharman, Smriti Irani, and Piyush Goyal among others have retained their position in the cabinet. 

On Thursday, right after the oath-taking ceremony, PM Narendra Modi had also congratulated his new team of Council of Ministers. Sharing his official photograph with all the ministers who were inducted, as part of the government's major cabinet revamp, he had asserted that it is a 'government for growth.'

The new Council of Ministers has more representation in terms of caste, religion, region, and experience than several other governments in the past. 11 women Ministers (2 in Cabinet), 27 OBCs (5 in cabinet), 8 STs (3 in Cabinet), and 12 SC members (2 in cabinet) have been made a part of the new Council of Ministers. 

Cabinet reshuffle

In a first confirmation that a Cabinet reshuffle was likely soon, Thaawarchand Gehlot was dropped from the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. A day later, 12 Union Ministers including Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Harsh Vardhan, and Sadananda Gowda put in their papers, which was accepted moments after, by the President of India Ramnath Kovind on the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At 6 pm on the same day, 43 Ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the allocation of portfolios of the new leaders as well as the old took place a few hours thereafter.