Modi likely to expand council of ministers on Sunday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to expand his council of ministers on Sunday with top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders maintaining that at least six new faces, including Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, are expected to be inducted.

Although the BJP top brass officially remained tight-lipped on the issue, party sources said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, its prominent Muslim face; its youth wing president Anurag Thakur and Parrikar are being considered for a ministerial berth.

Incidentally, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, whose Telugu Desam Party is a BJP ally, also indicated that an expansion of the Cabinet is on the cards.

"You will know details about the Cabinet expansion in two days,” said Naidu.

Some new faces from Bihar and Rajasthan, besides a few from BJP allies like Shiv Sena and TDP, are expected to find a place in the government, sources indicated.

Meanwhile, Modi's visit to the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the morning to attend a Gurbani recital to mark the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak also triggered speculation that it was in the context of a possible reshuffle of the Union Cabinet.

However, PMO sources said the visit was purely for the Gurbani programme being held in the Bhavan and which was also attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari among others.

There are currently 22 Cabinet members and an equal number of ministers of state, including 10 with independent charge. Many BJP leaders like Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Prakash Javadekar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal have charge of multiple ministries, and the exercise is aimed to streamline the portfolios.

If the reshuffle of the ministry takes place, this will be the first restructuring of his Cabinet by Modi after he assumed office in May after the general elections.

Sunday is being talked about as the day for the exercise as Modi is scheduled to leave on a three-nation nine-day tour on November 11. Parliament is scheduled to see the start of the winter session from November 24 and so the new ministers could have some time to prepare themselves to face the House.