Two more senior ministers of the Modi Cabinet have tendered their resignation ahead of the major reshuffle. Union Minister for Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minister for Environment and Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar have both resigned as ministers. So far, close 12 ministers have tendered their resignations from the Union Cabinet.
Javadekar who also held portfolios for Forest & Climate Change as well as Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises, was also a senior spokesperson for BJP. He was a Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra and then from Madhya Pradesh. He has also served as Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.
Ravi Shankar Prasad has worked as a Minister for Electronics and Information Technology as well as Communications under the Modi government and under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he was the Minister of Coal and Mines, Law and Justice and Information and Broadcasting. He too was a party spokesperson, regularly seen on panels of TV news debates. He is also an advocate and had represented LK Advani and ‘Ram lalla’ in the Ayodhya Ram Mandir case.
A total of 43 new ministers are expected to take oath as the Union government is being expanded for the first time since 2019. Several new faces, youngsters are being inducted while over 12 sitting ministers have been asked to resign. The minister who have resigned include Dr Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Pokhriyal, DV Sadananda Gowda, Babul Supriyo, Rattan Lal Kataria, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre among others.
Ministries like education, health are facing a complete overhaul. New faces being inducted include Shobha Karandlaje, Jyotiraditya Scindia, L Murugan, Narayan Rane, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Sarbananda Sonowal, Dr. Virendra Kumar, Dr. Satya Pal Singh Baghel, Ramchandra Prasad Singh and Ashwini Vaishnaw.
In the run-up to the big reshuffle, PM Modi as well as senior leaders of the BJP held review meetings with all the ministers. The reshuffle comes amidst a massive coronavirus crisis as well as criticism of price rise in the country.