Union Cabinet expansion: Narendra Modi combines talent with social, caste and regional balance

As the Shiv Sena stayed away, prime minister Narendra Modi expanded his council of ministers keeping in mind politics and talent. In an exercise aimed at furthering BJP's calculations to address regional and caste aspirations while putting performers in key positions, four cabinet ministers, three ministers of state with independent charge and 14 ministers of state were sworn in on Sunday.

Suresh Prabhu, a former Shiv Sainik inducted as a cabinet minister joined the BJP amidst a standoff between the two allies. A qualified chartered accountant, who will be given charge of the crucial railway ministry, had distinguished himself as a power minister in the Vajpayee regime. Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, the party general secretary JP Nadda, a Rajya Sabha MP from Himachal Pradesh, and Birendra Singh, a jat leader from Haryana who quit Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, are the other three who took oath as cabinet ministers.

The new entrants into the council of ministers, which has four from Uttar Pradesh and three from Bihar, reflect a balancing act in caste equations, adding political muscle for the party. From Bihar, where
elections are due next year, Giriraj Singh a hardliner who had sparked off a controversy by saying that those opposing Modi should go to Pakistan is a Bhumihar, Ram Kripal Yadav, a former RJD leader who defeated Lalu Prasad Yadav's daughter in Pataliputra could help in tapping the Yadav vote bank and pilot-cum-politician Rajiv Pratap Rudy, a BJP general secretary, who belongs to the Rajput community and had defeated the RJD supremo's wife Rabri Devi in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Also read: Six debutant MPs who made it to Narendra Modi's Cabinet

From Uttar Pradesh, where assembly polls will be held in 2017 there is one minister of state with independent charge and three ministers of state. While Mahesh Sharma, a doctor and first time MP from

Gautam Buddh Nagar has been inducted as minister of state with independent charge, BJP vice-president and one of the party's minority faces Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, two-time Lok Sabha member from Agra Ram Shanker Katheria, a dalit, and saffron clad Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, a first time MP from Fatehpur who belongs to the backward nishad caste will be the new ministers of state from the state.

A BJP leader pointed out that the expansion had factored in the party's political needs and kept in mind leaders who quit their parties to join it while inducting technocrats like Parrikar, Prabhu, Mahesh Sharma and Hazaribagh MP Jayant Sinha. Modi has also included Olympian shooter and first time MP from Rajasthan Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and singer-turned politician Babul Supriyo, another first time from West Bengal, another state on which the party has set its eyes.

However, Naqvi and Rudy besides Bandaru Dattatreya, who were ministers in the Vajpayee government a decade ago, continued in the same position in Modi's council of ministers, which had six first-time Mps. Dattatreya, who now represents Telangana, has been the BJP's face in Andhra Pradesh for nearly four decades. The TDP's YS Chaudhury, an industrialist politician and Rajya Sabha MP, has been given a berth from Andhra Pradesh.

From Maharashtra, there will be two new faces in the government. While Prabhu is a cabinet minister, Chandrapur MP Hansraj Ahir who led the fight against the coal scam, has been inducted as a minister of state. Though there are two ministers of state—Sanwar Lal Jat and Rathore-- from Rajasthan, there is no cabinet minister from the state. There was no induction from Kerala, Odisha and Uttarakhand.