PM Modi’s cabinet recast, Shah’s party rejig likely in late May
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to undertake a cabinet reshuffle after the end of the current budget session of Parliament in May. The reshuffle is expected to follow a similar party-level exercise to be conducted by BJP president Amit Shah.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to undertake a cabinet reshuffle after the end of the current budget session of Parliament in May. The reshuffle is expected to follow a similar party-level exercise to be conducted by BJP president Amit Shah.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with BJP president Amit Shah at a rally in Gaya. Modi is expected to undertake a cabinet reshuffle after the end of the current budget session. (PTI File Photo)
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Both reshuffles are likely between May 10 and May 30. Modi completes two years in office on May 26. Authoritative sources told HT that while the reshuffle exercise of new inductions and dropping under-performing ministers is still to begin, minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla and small and medium enterprises minister Kalraj Mishra may have to go due to an age bar of 75 in the Modi cabinet.
Union sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who is the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for poll-bound Assam, has already opted out by becoming president of the party’s state unit.
“Ideally, it should be a significant reshuffle of the cabinet as there are only 70 ministers (allowed strength is 81) but this depends on the residual bench strength of the BJP and the results of state elections on May 19. The reshuffle will also be undertaken keeping in mind the forthcoming Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka state elections,” said a party office-bearer.
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The cabinet reshuffle will follow the party reshuffle where Shah has prepared a list of at least 30 young leaders in each state, keeping the regional social composition in mind. The party is apparently concerned about the quality of its leadership in states such as Delhi and Punjab and may induct fresh blood to rejuvenate these outfits.
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The cabinet reshuffle will follow the party reshuffle where Shah has prepared a list of at least 30 young leaders in each state, keeping the regional social composition in mind. The party is apparently concerned about the quality of its leadership in states such as Delhi and Punjab and may induct fresh blood to rejuvenate these outfits.
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There is the possibility that a couple of Union ministers may be sent back to the party, particularly to strengthen its communications wing as veteran BJP leaders with close to 50 years of experience have taken on gubernatorial assignments or special government projects. The BJP plans to build strong units in the east and north-east, keeping in view the 2019 general elections.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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