In a sly dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega Cabinet reshuffle, Shiv Sena MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut on Thursday said that the PM and the Bharatiya Janata Party ought to grateful to the Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for having supplied them with leaders in the new Cabinet.
Four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders from Maharashtra were inducted in the Council of Ministers, including the Sena’s bete noire Narayan Rane, who has been made a Union Minister, while Kapil Patil, Dr. Bhagwat Karad and Bharati Pawar were inducted as Ministers of State (MoS).
“The BJP really ought to be thankful to the NCP and Sena as three of the four new faces from Maharashtra in the freshly-constituted council were either associated with the Sena, the NCP or the Congress at one point of time in their careers… Kapil Patil and Bharati Pawar are NCP ‘products’ while Mr. Rane was a Shiv Sainik and a Congressman before joining the BJP. However, we congratulate the new Ministers and hope that they succeed in their new responsibilities,” said Mr. Raut.
Mr. Rane has been given the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises portfolio, while Mr. Patil has been appointed MoS in the Panchayati Raj Ministry; Ms. Pawar has been appointed MoS for Health and Family Welfare; and Mr. Karad as MoS Finance.
Refraining from criticising Mr. Rane — a persistent and bitter critic of the Sena — Mr. Raut said that the former’s stature was much higher than the position given to him by the Prime Minister.
“This is not the time to indulge in personal criticism…He [Mr. Rane] had been chief minister of Maharashtra at one time and has held several important portfolios. Naturally, he faces a challenge in generating employment and reviving moribund small and medium enterprises that have been waylaid by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr. Raut said, while wishing his old adversary success.
At the same time, the Sena MP said that experienced leaders like Prakash Javadekar, also from Maharashtra, had fallen by the wayside in the reshuffle exercise, while old BJP hands like Ravi Shankar Prasad had been sent packing.
“Mr. Prasad often used to boast about the Prime Minister’s ‘master stroke’…however, this ‘master stroke’, whatever that may be, seems to have unfortunately boomeranged on him,” quipped Mr. Raut.
He further dismissed suggestions that the reshuffle was a well thought out strategy on part of the BJP to target its estranged saffron ally, the Shiv Sena, in key regions of the State, including the Konkan.
“If these positions have been awarded to them with the sole object of countering the Sena or any other non-BJP party, then it is an insult to Modi’s Cabinet…What will be the prestige of the position if the Ministers have been appointed merely to harass the Opposition and further their party’s political aims? These posts have been given for them to work for the country and not to topple Opposition parties. If anyone thinks otherwise, then they are seriously mistaken,” Mr. Raut said.
The induction of Mr. Rane, the strongman of the Konkan, is being viewed by observers as an aggressive move on the BJP’s part to decimate the Sena in the Konkan region. Likewise, the induction of Mr. Patil, who joined the BJP before the 2014 general election, is being viewed as a move to counter Sena stalwart and Maharashtra Minister Eknath Shinde, who currently holds sway over Thane.