Modi to reshuffle ministers on Tuesday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reshuffle the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. The change is expected to take into account not only the Assembly polls in UP and Uttarakhand due next year but also caste calculus. This will be the second reshuffle in Modi’s council.

The names doing the rounds are: Anupriya Patel, an OBC Lok Sabha member of ally Apna Dal in UP; BJP MPs S.S. Ahluwalia (West Bengal) and Purushottam Rupala, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat; Krishna Raj, a dalit woman MP from UP; Mahendra Nath Pandey, a Brahmin face from the same state; Ajay Tamta, a dalit MP from Uttarakhand; Arjun Ram Meghwal, a dalit BJP MP from Rajasthan; Ramdas Athawale, a dalit ally and RPI MP from Maharashtra; Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, also from Maharashtra; and Mansukhbhai Mandaviya, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat.

Other names include those of Rajya Sabha MPs Vijay Goel, M.J. Akbar, Anil Madhav Dave, and Bhupender Yadav, and Lok Sabha member from Pali in Rajasthan P.P. Chaudhary.

Several of these leaders met BJP chief Amit Shah on Monday.

The leaders likely to be dropped are Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah and Minister of State for Chemicals & Fertilizers Nihal Chand. Chand has been accused of rape in his state Rajasthan.