A mega Cabinet expansion is on the cards for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government ahead of next year’s crucial elections in five Indian states and the 2024 general election.

Although there has been no official word on the possible Cabinet reshuffle, UNB has learned that up to 28 new faces, including a few from West Bengal, may be inducted into the Cabinet this month. this.

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Modi’s Cabinet currently has 53 ministers. This would be the first Cabinet expansion since his nationalist Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party returned to power in the 2019 general election, decimating the opposition Congress.

In fact, the names of at least three BJP leaders from the eastern state of Bengal – Jagannath Sarkar, Shantanu Thakur and N Pramanik – are circulating. Bengal shares its border with Bangladesh.

Modi’s nationalist party lost heavily to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in the April-May elections in Bengal. Mamata resisted the ruling opposition for a landslide victory in the polls.

Bengal had witnessed the most publicized contest in recent state polls in India. As Mamata rehashed about being the Bengal girl, the BJP called on people to vote for “change and socio-economic development”.

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The UNB has also learned that former congressional lawmaker Jyotiraditya Scindia and former chief minister of northeastern Assam state Sarbananda Sonowal are likely to be part of the cabinet expansion.

Scindia, who served as a minister in the previous congressional federal government,
defected from the BJP last year and helped the Saffron group reclaim their stronghold in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

Sonowal, on the other hand, gave way to his deputy Himanta Biswa Sarma as chief minister of Assam after the BJP came to power for the second time in a row in the latest Assembly ballots. ‘State.

Others who could be part of the Cabinet rejig are the former Deputy Chief Minister of the East Indian State of Bihar, Sushil Modi, and the former Chief Minister of the Western State of Maharashtra, Narayan Rane.

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Nine sitting Modi cabinet ministers, including Piyush Goyal and Smriti Irani, who currently hold additional portfolios, may have to abandon the additional ministries to make way for the new faces, sources said.

“Five Indian states, including northern Uttar Pradesh, are due to go to the polls next year. The party that wins Uttar Pradesh is said to get India. This is because the state has 80 parliamentary seats, ”said Rama Sharma, a resident of Delhi. political analyst in post.