NEW DELHI: Amid the heightened buzz of a Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers on Monday. Sources said more than a dozen new faces are likely to be inducted into the Cabinet and an announcement in this regard would follow Modi’s meeting with ministers on Monday.
According to sources, the new Cabinet will have a new face from Madhya Pradesh, one from Chhattisgarh, two from Rajashthan, two or three from Maharashtra, two or three from Bihar, two from Telangana, and two from another south Indian state. Sources said the names of non-BJP leaders Praful Patel (Nationalist Congress Party) and Chirag Paswan (chief of Ram Vilas faction of Lok Janshakti Party) feature prominently among the likely inclusions into the Cabinet.
BJP lawmakers expected to make it into the Cabinet include Sanjay Bandi, C T Ravi, Janardhan Singh Sigriwal, Vivek Thakur, C R Patil, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, and Suresh Gopi. As many as 15 Union ministers could be dropped and assigned party work ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
V K Singh, Parshottam Khodabhai Rupala, Birendra Kumar, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Giriraj Singh, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Narendra Tomar, Mahendra Pandey, and Ajay Mishra are among those who may be asked to work for the party. Modi in recent days held a series of consultations with senior leaders to firm up plans for revamping the Cabinet.