Four BJP's Gen Next leaders promoted as Cabinet Ministers

The prominent leaders of next generation of BJP - Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Padhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi- have been promoted as Cabinet ministers in the Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers in its 3rd reshuffles. It is perhaps the last and final Cabinet reshuffles by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before going to assembly polls in nine states within a year and the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have together are preparing the strategy to face the up coming state assembly elections, and finally the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. That is why the BJP leaders from the states which are to go to polls have been given prominence in the Cabinet reshuffles. But all the four BJP ministers of Gen Next- Nirmala Sitharama, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Praddhan- are rootless leaders. They have not faced Lok Sabha elections even for once in their political lives so far. All are Rajya Sabha members. So, they cannot be considered as mass-based leaders as they are indirectly elected. One or two among the four newly promoted Cabinet ministers may have contested Lok Sabha elections, but have not tasted victory even once. The biggest surprise of the Union Cabinet reshuffle is the promotion of Nirmala Sitharaman as the Defence Minister. She will be only second female Defence Minister of the country after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. She has got very quick promotion in only three years from the party spokesperson to the Defence minister of the country. Though Army is virtually the male domain, her being the Defence Minister will certainly encourage women to choose military service as the career. Sitharam was very articulate as the party spokesperson in 2014. She defended the party aptly and put forward its views very clearly before the anchors in the live TV debates during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. On the basis of extraordinary performance as party spokesperson, she was taken into the Council of Ministers as minister of state in 2014. Defence was under Arun Jaitely as additional portfolio after the resignation Manohar Parrikar as Defence Minister. Sitharaman being the Defence Minister, she will be automatically on the Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs along with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. PM Modi has promoted all these next generation leaders of the party on the basis of performance. PM expects from them to perform more and more and be visible on the ground in view the Lok Sabha elections only in two years. Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Naquvi, the Muslim face of the BJP, have peformed better in the eyes of Shah and PM Modi. As far as the overall performance of the Modi govt. in the last 3 years is concerned, it has not been extraordinary. Nothing is visible on the ground for betterment. Reshuffling Cabinet does not mean it would enhance the performance of the ministers as it is also reported that they are asked to catch the thief with their bounded. Power is centred in PMO. No minister dare take the decision on his own without the prior consent of PMO. Union Minister Piyush Goyal has been given the charge of Railway Ministry, post the mega Cabinet rejig on Sunday morning.This comes after Suresh Prabhu formally bade adieu to the 'rail family' on Twitter, earlier in the day. He has now been assigned the portfolio of the Minister of Commerce and Industry. Goyal has also been declared as the Minister of Coal. He has been responsible for bringing about a turnaround in power production and delivered on the government's plan to electrify villages. The Union Cabinet reshuffle shows that the MoSs, who have worked hard and brought result in the eyes of party president Amit Shah and PM Modi, have been promoted.