Three of the six NDA Union ministers who come from Bihar may be dropped from the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when an expected Cabinet reshuffle takes place after the winter session of Parliament, which is beginning on 24 November.
The Bharatiya Janata Party fared badly in the constituencies of the ministers from Bihar, winning eight out of a total 30 Assembly seats. In Champaran, however, MP Radha Mohan Singh helped the NDA win four out of the six Assembly seats.
“There was a specific reason for taking so many faces from Bihar when the Cabinet was formed by PM Modi. However, with the party faring badly in the Bihar Assembly elections, some of these ministers could be dropped. Some prominent faces from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where elections are due in the coming years, are under consideration to be inducted in the Cabinet,” a BJP national vice president said.
The leader said the Union ministers from Bihar failed to showcase the National Democratic Alliance’s programmes and policies to the electorate of their respective constituencies. “Till the last moment, they maintained that the party would perform exceedingly well in their constituencies. However, the truth is that these leaders were cut off from the ground and were dependent on secondary sources like newspapers and media persons for information,” this leader said.
The six Bihar MPs who are in the Cabinet are Radha Mohan Singh (Agriculture), Ram Vilas Paswan (Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution), Giriraj Singh (MSME), Rajiv Pratap Rudy (Skill Development), Ram Kirpal Yadav (Sanitation) and Upendra Kushwaha (Human Resources Development). Apart from these six, two Rajya Sabha MPs from Bihar, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Dharmendra Pradhan are also ministers in the Cabinet. Party sources said Giriraj Singh may be removed from the Cabinet. “It was a bad decision to induct him as he has been making embarrassing statements to the media,” one party functionary said.
Both LJP chief Ram Bilas Paswan and RLSP president Upendra Kushwaha are said to be in trouble as their parties did not help the NDA. “Paswan forced us to give him so many seats and now reports say many of the seats were allotted to candidates for non-political purposes. If we had single handedly contested more seats, we would have performed better,” a BJP MP from central Bihar said. Paswan has been accused of going soft on hoarders and failing to control illegal stocking of grains.