From a former IAS officer to a retired diplomat to a former Mumbai Police Commissioner, who is now a BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh, to a former Union Home Secretary, who is now a BJP MP from Bihar, the list of nine new faces who will join Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers on Sunday morning is an interesting mix of caste combination and state representation.
Two of the likely new members are not even members of either house of Parliament and will have to get elected to one in the next six months to continue as Minister.
The new Ministers will be sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhawan at 10.30 am. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for China to attend the BRICS summit immediately after the ceremony.
Among the names cleared for oath are Raj Kumar Singh, former Union Home Secretary and MP from Arrah, Bihar, Hardeep Singh Puri, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, who was India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Alphons Kannanthanam, a former Kerala cadre IAS officer who became famous as Delhi's demolition man when he was Commissioner of the Delhi Development Authority, and Satya Pal Singh, a former IPS officer who was Mumbai Police Commissioner and is now BJP MP from Bagpat.
The other candidates cleared for taking oath are Shiv Pratap Shukla, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and a former Uttar Pradesh minister, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Lok Sabha MP from Buxar, Bihar and a former Bihar minister, Virendra Kumar, a sixth-term Lok Sabha MP from Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh.
Anantkumar Hegde, a fifth-term Lok Sabha MP from Uttara Kannada, Karnataka and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Lok Sabha MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan are also likely to take oath on Sunday.
The Prime Minister is also learnt to have decided to accept the resignation of six ministerial colleagues who submitted their resignations, including Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Kalraj Mishra, who resigned on Saturday.
Among the other ministers who have resigned were Bandaru Dattatreya, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjiv Balyan, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahendra Nath Pandey. Uma Bharti, too, has offered her resignation but her fate remains in balance. Both she and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, who had offered to quit in the wake of a series of train derailments, could be shifted to some other ministries.
According to sources, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will get two new ministers each, while Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Rajasthan will get one each.
Sources said that in choosing the new ministers, Modi went by 4Ps - Passion, Proficiency, Professional & Political acumen (for Progress). It is learnt that all the new members have been hand-picked by the Prime Minister on the merit of their past performance and future potential, who will work with clear mandate to deliver on Modi's vision of a New India. Sources also added that the new ministers will be strategically placed in key ministries, especially focusing on last mile delivery directly to the people.
However, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to reshuffle his council of ministers by inducting new faces, there was a last-minute twist in the tale. The JD(U), which recently entered the NDA fold after joining hands with the BJP to form the government in Bihar, claimed it had not been consulted or informed about the impending reshuffle.
"Our MPs are in Delhi. There was never any issue in the party over participating in the government but there has been no communication to us even though the reshuffle is on Sunday," a senior JD(U) leader said.
The Shiv Sena, another BJP ally, also said that it had not received any communication from the BJP over the inclusion of any of its MP in the Council of Ministers.
"I have got news about the Cabinet expansion only from media. I have not enquired about it. I have neither received any communication from anybody nor are we hungry for power," Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray told reporters on Saturday.
The AIADMK, which rules Tamil Nadu, and has come closer to the BJP in the last few weeks, is also not joining the Modi government.
It is now almost certain that a new face would join Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the charge of Defence Ministry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at Raisina Hill.
Sources said while only nine new faces would join the ministry, portfolios of several ministers will be changed.
Arun Jaitley, who currently holds the charge of two heavyweight portfolios — finance and defence — will retain only one, sources said.
Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, seen as one of the more capable ministers, could be given more responsibility, possibly Railways. Steel Minister Birender Singh and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad could be moved to other ministries. Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha, seen as "good performers" in the government could be elevated.
Besides Jaitley, Harsh Vardhan, Smriti Irani, and Narendra Singh Tomar are handling additional charges.
Prime Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah also had a one-on-one meeting to finalise the reshuffle and identify the ministers to be drafted for organisational work. Shah also met some BJP MPs and ministers.
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