A day after the cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a virtual meeting of the union cabinet and council of ministers.
The two meetings will be held back-to-back. The first meeting of the new cabinet began at 5 pm. PM Modi will also chair a meeting of the council of ministers at 7 pm. It is usual for the Prime Minister to convene meetings of the Union Cabinet as well as the Council of Ministers after a reshuffle or expansion exercise.
Hours after 43 leaders took oath as ministers in the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday evening as a part of the Cabinet reshuffle exercise, the Centre allocated portfolios to the newly inducted ministers.
In order to give a boost to his government after criticism for handling of the Covid second wave, economy and Twitter, PM Modi on Wednesday appointed new ministers for health, IT and oil. He appointed Mansukh Laxman Mandaviya as the country’s new health minister just hours after Harsh Vardhan, who was the face of the government’s efforts to fight Covid-19, was asked to step down along with his deputy.
To this, the opposition leader P Chidambaram said the removal of the health minister was an acknowledgement that the Modi government had failed in managing the pandemic. He said there is a lesson for ministers in these resignations, if things go right the credit will go to the PM, if things go wrong the ministers will be the fall guy.
The official count of deaths after a surge in Covid-19 infections in April and May passed 400,000 last week. Experts believe the actual number may be much higher and there are fears of a third wave soon. Millions remain unvaccinated.
It was the first Union Cabinet reshuffle and expansion after Prime Minister Modi returned to power for a second term in May 2019.
Meanwhile, ahead of the much-anticipated reshuffle, at least twelve ministers have resigned from the council of ministers so far. Among the big names to resign include IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar.
The swearing-in ceremony, which took place at Rashtrapati Bhavan amid Covid-19 protocols, came days ahead of the monsoon session of parliament.
In other India News, Pashupati Kumar Paras on Thursday claimed his legacy towards his brother Ram Vilas Paswan and said he is the political successor of his late brother Ram Vilas Paswan.