New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to go for a Cabinet reshuffle after April 12, as per the reports. According to the reports, the cabinet reshuffle can happen after the Parliament session gets over on April 12, as per the sources, reports TOI. The reports also have it that the Cabinet reshuffle has been on the cards for a while to fill up the vacant seats as Finance minister Arun Jaitley has taken up the role of the new defence minister and to induct some fresh faces in the cabinet.
Arun Jaitley was given the additional charge of the defense portfolio after Manohar Parriker resigned to take the responsibility of the Chief Minister of Goa. As both the finance and defence are considered ministries with “heavy workload”, it is likely that a new defence minister would soon be inducted once the Parliament session gets over on April 12.
It has also been reported that soon after Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party swept off the general elections in 2014, Jaitley was given the additional charge of Defence Ministry but the arrangement was found to be impracticable and Manohar Parrikar who was then the Goa CM, was asked to take up the role of the Defence Minister.
“This is a classical situation of role conflict,” said a senior government source, reports TOI.
Besides this, it was also speculated that a finance minister holding the additional charges of Defence Ministry may find himself in a difficult situation if he’ll have to decide on financial demands or will have to face finance issues that he will be raising as the defence minister.
It has also been speculated that there were chances of a change in the external affairs ministry after the Minister of External Affairs of India Sushma Swaraj underwent a kidney transplant in December. However, she looked pretty comfortable while she gave a 15-minute speech in Lok Sabha.
Narendra Modi expanded his Cabinet in July 2016 when Smriti Irani was shifted to textiles and Sadananda Gowda was moved to the statistics ministry from law. Venkaiah Naidu was shifted to information and broadcasting portfolio from Jaitley.
