New Delhi: Several prominent BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who were a part of the previous council of ministers, haven’t made the cut this time around.
ThePrint takes a look at the list of senior BJP leaders who failed to get a ministerial berth on 30 May.
Arun Jaitley
Former finance minister Arun Jaitley himself opted out of the cabinet, citing his health. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, dated 29 May, Jaitley said he has been facing “some serious health challenges” in the past 18 months.
Jaitley, who suffers from diabetes, underwent a kidney transplant in May last year. He had also not presented the interim budget this year, a job taken up by then cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal who had temporarily taken charge as finance minister.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
The 2004 Athens Olympics silver medallist and former army officer took over as the minister of youth affairs (independent charge) in 2017. He was also given the charge of the information and broadcasting ministry (independent charge) in May last year.
Although Rathore won comfortably from the Jaipur Rural constituency, he has failed to grab a ministerial berth.
Also read: New Modi govt — Amit Shah, Jaishankar in, Sushma, Maneka & Rathore out
Sushma Swaraj
The suspense over whether Sushma Swaraj would be a part of the Modi cabinet remained till she took a seat with the audience at the oath-taking ceremony Thursday.
Swaraj, the outgoing external affairs minister, had not contested the elections.
According to sources in the BJP, Swaraj’s ill-health was an important reason for her not finding a place in the Modi cabinet.
Suresh Prabhu
Suresh Prabhu first took charge as the railways minister in May 2014 but resigned after the Utkal Express derailment near Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, in August 2017.
In September 2017, he was appointed the minister of commerce and industries and later in March 2018 he also took charge of the civil aviation ministry. As of now, there is no specific reason why Prabhu was shunted out from the council of ministers. BJP sources said that he may have been a casualty of the Modi-Shah duo’s diversification plans with regard to the cabinet.
Mahesh Sharma
Senior BJP leader Mahesh Sharma was the union minister of state in the culture ministry and that of civil aviation.
Sharma too finds no place in the newly-formed cabinet. He had won from the Gautam Buddha Nagar constituency in Uttar Pradesh by garnering 60 per cent of the total votes cast.
Maneka Gandhi
In the 2014 BJP-led NDA government, Maneka Gandhi served as the minister for women and child development. Gandhi missing out is being attributed to her lack of performance.
Also read: Many fresh faces in Modi govt as state BJP leaders get rewarded with ministerial berths
Jagat Prakash Nadda
J.P. Nadda may not be a part of this Modi cabinet but there is speculation within the BJP that he may take over as the BJP president from Amit Shah.
In the previous Modi government, Nadda was the minister of health and family welfare. Nadda also served as the health and family welfare minister as well as parliamentary affairs minister in the Himachal Pradesh government in power between 1998 and 2003.
Satya Pal Singh
Satya Pal Singh served as MoS in the human resource development ministry between 3 September 2017 and 24 May 2019. In the 2019 elections, Singh won by a narrow margin of 23,000 votes against the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary.
Sources in the BJP say that there can only be a single Jat minister from the region, which in this case is Sanjeev Balyan, who won the elections from Muzaffarnagar.
An HRD minister who debates evolution with Charles Darwin is not an asset to the government in a country hoping to encash its demographic dividend. Suresh Prabhu, nominally a technocrat, was one of the most overrated members of the team. Balasaheb had sized him up ages ago.