Modi keeps grip on key portfolios

Drawing from the party’s rather limited resources, Modi put his own team of confidants and loyalists to look after crucial portfolios that had proved to be the undoing of the UPA government. So Jaitley got Finance; his aide Dharmendra Pradhan Petroleum & Natural Gas; Ravi Shankar Prasad Communications & Information Technology and Law; Prakash Javadekar Environment and Information & Broadcasting; Piyush Goyal Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy; Nirmala Sitharaman Commerce & Industry; and Smriti Irani HRD. These are the sectors likely to get maximum attention in the days ahead.

Having learnt lessons from the way former environment ministers Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Natarajan had rocked the UPA’s boat, Modi chose Javadekar ignoring obvious claims of former environment minister Maneka Gandhi. Having seen ministers trying to chart their own course at WTO talks, Modi placed the Commerce and Industry portfolio under his trusted lieutenant Sitharaman.

The only instance of deference to political imperatives was the allocation of Ministry of External Affairs to Sushma Swaraj who has not been on the same page with Modi politically. Only time will tell whether this will have any bearing on Modi’s foreign policy agenda.

With “minimum government, maximum governance” as his motto, Modi Tuesday restructured the ministries doing away with a dozen of them of the UPA regime.

But this could be an exercise in progress as creation of these “organic” ministries still seems incomplete. For example, Civil Aviation, which was expected to be clubbed with Transport, still remains a separate ministry.

Council of ministers

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space; All important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister.

Rajnath Singh
Home Affairs

Sushma Swaraj
External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs

Arun Jaitley
Finance; Corporate Affairs; Defence

M Venkaiah Naidu
Urban Development; Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation; Parliamentary Affairs

Nitin Gadkari
Road Transport and Highways; Shipping

D V Sadananda Gowda Railways

Uma Bharti
Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation

Najma Heptulla
Minority Affairs

Gopinath Munde
Rural Development; Panchayati Raj; Drinking Water and Sanitation

Ramvilas Paswan
Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution

Kalraj Mishra
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

Maneka Gandhi
Women and Child Development

Ananthkumar
Chemicals and Fertilizers

Ravi Shankar Prasad

Communications and IT; Law and Justice

Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati
Civil Aviation

Anant Geete
Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises

Harsimrat Kaur Badal

Food Processing Industries

Narendra Singh Tomar

Mines; Steel; Labour and Employment

Jual Oram

Tribal Affairs

Radha Mohan

Singh Agriculture

Thaawar Chand Gehlot

Social Justice and Empowerment

Smriti Irani
Human Resource Development

Dr Harsh Vardhan
Health and Family Welfare.