Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in a no-nonsense mood when it came to the reshuffle of the cabinet yesterday. At his ruthless best, PM Modi sacked some big-ticket names from the cabinet which included Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Ramesh Nishank Pokhriyal among several others.
Clamour had been growing in pace amongst the public that the aforementioned three ministers weren’t able to rise up to the expectation of the job profile and the general populace. Reported extensively by TFI, Union Minister of Law as well as Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad’s final nail in the coffin was lodged after his lackadaisical attitude in dealing with Twitter came to full glory in the public eye.
While the Silicon valley tech companies continued to avoid adhering to the revised IT laws, the Union Minister seemed content on issuing one warning after another, dithering to take strict and cogent action on the violating company. PM Modi took note of the public’s pulse and after RS Prasad was locked out of his own Twitter account — decided to bring the sledgehammer.
Also the very public sacking of Javadekar, Prasad and Nishank proves one thing. PM Modi knows people’s “Man ki Baat”. These 3 ministers were possibly the 3 most detested ones in the previous cabinet.
— Atul Kumar Mishra (@TheAtulMishra) July 7, 2021
Similarly, Prakash Javadekar, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister was forced to tender his resignation ahead of the reshuffle, knowing the inevitable. Although at the fag end of his stint as the I&B minister, Javadekar managed to bring in IT rules for the OTT platforms but he still couldn’t stop the factory churning anti-Hindu content at a routine pace.
Even when anti-Hindu web series like Tandav, Sacred Games ran riot with their controversial content, Prakash Javadekar remained steadfast on taking a non-confrontational approach. Sometimes, a minister has to show who is the boss but Javadekar, on several occasions, failed to step up.
Meanwhile, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, one of the 12 ministers to be axed was appointed as the Education Minister by PM Modi after the 2019 polls. The PM had taken a calculated bet at the time as many naysayers of the move claimed that a ministry like HRD needed a more aggressive face, not a passive personality like Nishank.
While his tenure was off to a sedate start, things started going downhill quickly. Right from the time when the fee hike protests started, which later spilled to the JNU exam boycott, the anti-CAA-NRC protests where AMU and JMI lost control of their unruly students and clashed with the police and damaged public property — Pokhriyal was nowhere to be seen.
It didn’t help matters when routine errors in NCERT books eulogising the likes of Barbarian in Aurangzeb came to light and he observed the proceedings like a mute spectator. Safe to say, despite the faith shown by PM Modi, the MP from Haridwar failed to live up to the expectations.
While the axing of Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan surprised many as he managed to steer the country through two devastating waves and ensured a smooth rollout of the ambitious national mass vaccination programme, despite several non-BJP states embroiled in vaccination and hospital scams. However, domain experts have argued that it was the newly crowned Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s expertise and success in the Chemical Fertiliser Ministry that he has been promoted.
As reported by TFI, India is one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world. However, despite its gigantic capability to churn out medicines on a large scale, the industry is dependent on Chinese companies for the raw material required to produce these drugs.
India under PM Modi is looking to take on China and the biggest roadblock is scaling up domestic manufacturing of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient). Mansukh has the experience and he can nab the pulse of the pharmaceutical industry to not only develop medicines for COVID-related illness but any future mishaps.
Read More: Modi government expands API scheme to kick China out of the Pharmaceutical sector
The change of personnel by the PM is purely performance-driven and unlike other opposition parties where senior leaders create a filibuster when removed, the BJP leaders have accepted the diktat with utmost professionalism.