Fresh faces were appointed to the Cabinet last week on Wednesday as the Cabinet reshuffle took place. These ministers received their first taste of how life as a minister is going to be under the leadership of Narendra Modi.
As per a report by The Sunday Guardian, Prime Minister Narendra Modi explained the code of conduct to the newly inducted ministers yesterday. The PM laid down the rules and norms for the ministers in his first meeting with them. The things that the Prime Minister emphasized on included punctuality and working knowledge of the ministries.
The Prime Minister said that the ministers should not look blank in the meetings when asked about the work going on in their respective ministries. He also told the ministers to come well prepared for the questions asked by the parliamentarians in session.
The ministers were asked to speak softly to the media (one of the reasons behind firing Ravi Shankar Prasad was probably his arrogance towards journalists), and stay away from controversies.
As per the TSG report, “Significantly, the ministers have also been asked to wear masks at all times, whenever they are in public. The PM has instructed them not to share any photographs in the public domain without them wearing masks so that they can set examples on how to behave during the pandemic situation. The impact of the PM’s instructions was evident as several ministers, despite repeated requests from their supporters, did not allow them to click selfies without the mask.”
At the start of the Monsoon Session, the Prime Minister urged the opposition leaders to ask tough questions, but also allow the ministers to respond to them. However, the opposition leaders chose not to allow the proper functioning of the parliament. They started to disrupt the session in the very first hour. In fact, the introduction of the new ministers by the Prime Minister was also disrupted.
“Perhaps some people are not happy if country’s women, OBCs, farmers’ sons become Ministers. That is why they don’t even allow their introduction,” said the Prime Minister.
Rajnath Singh, senior BJP leader and Defense Minister, also criticized the opposition and said that this is the first time such a thing is happening in 24 years of his parliamentary career.
“The strength of Parliament is in maintaining healthy traditions. Both Opposition and Treasury should maintain healthy traditions. Even if one or 50 new ministers are inducted, the whole House listens to their introduction by the Prime Minister with decorum… This is sad, unfortunate and an unhealthy approach,” said Mr Singh.
“We condemn the manner in which Opposition MPs behaved on the first day of the session today. We saw a very unfortunate situation, both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. In Rajya Sabha, the address of the Chairman was interrupted too,” said Piyush Goyal, the newly appointed leader of Rajya Sabha.
PM Modi pressed on the urgent need for people to get vaccinated in his address before the start of the parliament session. “The vaccine is given in ”baahu” (arms), those who take the jab become ”Baahubali” he said.
So, while the Prime Minister is asking his ministers to prepare well for questions by opposition leaders and perform well in their ministries, the opposition is not even allowing discussions in the parliament.
A large number of fresh ministerial faces have been inducted. The Prime Minister wants to ensure that all of them give their best in the next three years so that the voters remain happy with the government and the party is reelected to power in the 2024 general elections.