Have you thought of who you would have in your cabinet of ministers if you were the Prime Minister of India instead of Narendra Modi?
Well, I have…and here is my ideal cabinet, in order of what I believe are the most important ministries for India, with the names of their deputies in brackets:
Home & Internal Security: Amit Shah (Satya Pal Singh; Dilip Ghosh)
Finance & Corporate Affairs: Piyush Goyal (Jayant Sinha; Chandrakant R. Patil; Subhash Chandra Baheria)
Defence & Intelligence: Gen. VK Singh (Gajendra Singh Shekhawat; Raj Kumar Singh)
Human Resources & Skill Development: Nirmala Sitharaman (Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda; Anupriya Patel; Chirag Paswan, LJP)
External & NRI Affairs: Hardeep Singh Puri (Kirron Kher; Dharmapuri Arvind)
Transportation & Water Resources: Nitin Gadkari (RAILWAYS: Rajen Gohain and Dinesh Chandra Yadav, JDU; HIGHWAYS: Bhavana Gawali, SS; WATER RESOURCES: Rajiv Ranjan Singh, JDU; CIVIL AVIATION: Dr. Mahesh Sharma)
Agriculture & Farmers Welfare; Fertilizers: Rural Development; Panchayati Raj; PMAY (Rural): Rajnath Singh (Ram Kripal Yadav; Uday Pratap Singh; Bandi Sanjay Kumar; Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav, SS; Kaushalendra Kumar, JDU)
Commerce & Industry: Suresh Prabhu (COMMERCE: Raju Bista; HEAVY INDUSTRY & PUBLIC ENTERPRISES: Babul Supriyo; MSME: Giriraj Singh; TEXTILES: Shiv Pratap Shukla; KHADI & VILLAGE INDUSTRIES: Sanjay Bhatia)
Law & Judicial Affairs: Ravi Shankar Prasad (P. P. Chaudhary)
Skill Development & Entrepreneurship: Smriti Irani (Dr. Subhas Sarkar; Anant Kumar Hegde; Shankar Lalwani)
Termination of Corruption: Arjun Ram Meghwal (Hansraj Ahir and Pralhad Joshi)
Health: Dr. Subhash Bhamre (Dr. Shrikant Shinde, SS; Dr. Alok Kumar Suman, JDU)
Urban Affairs & PMAY (Urban): Rahul Ramesh Shewale, SS (Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma; Queen Oja)
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement: Manoj Sinha, even though he lost the elections (Krishna Raj; Nalin Kumar Kateel)
Women’s Development: Harsimrat Kaur Badal, SAD (Poonamben Maadam; Locket Chatterjee)
Labour & Employment: Prakash Javadekar (Suresh Pujari; Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato)
Social Justice & Poverty Alleviation: Radha Mohan Singh (Ramdas Athawale; Krishan Pal Gurjar)
Petroleum & Natural Gas: Dharmendra Pradhan (Rameswar Teli)
Energy, Coal & Mines: Santosh Gangwar (Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary; Annapurna Devi Yadav)
Tourism & Culture: Dr. Jitendra Singh (Jugal Kishore Sharma)
Food & Public Distribution: Thawar Chand Gehlot (Ram Swaroop Sharma)
Planning, Statistics & Programme Implementation: J.P. Nadda (Mahendra Singh Solanki; Tejasvi Surya)
Minority Affairs: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (Saumitra Khan)
Swachh Bharat Mission: Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Sudarshan Bhagat)
Tribal Development: Jual Oram (Rajendra Dhedya Gavit, SS)
Children’s Welfare: Dr. Virendra Kumar (Shobha Karandlaje)
Development of Northeast Region: Kiren Rijiju (Pratima Bhoumik)
Parliamentary Affairs: Narendra Singh Tomar (Sadashiv Kisan Lokhande, SS; Giridhari Yadav, JDU)
PMO: D.V. Sadananda Gowda (Hasmukhbhai Somabhai Patel; Anurag Thakur)
Communications: Rao Inderjit Singh (Diya Kumari)
Fisheries: Pashupati Kumar Paras, LJP (Pradan Baruah)
Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests & Climate Change: Dr. Harsh Vardhan (Suresh Angadi; Nainar Nagendran)
AYUSH: Shripad Yesso Naik (Dr. Bharti Shiyal)
Sports: Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions: S.S. Ahluwalia (Ramesh Jigajinagi)
Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj have not been accommodated in the ministry due to their failing health.
In my opinion, there is no need to have separate Ministries for Railways, Civil Aviation, Heavy Industry, Electronics, Food Processing Industry, Steel, Textiles, or Information & Broadcasting).
There are 102 Ministers (including MOS’s), of which 15 are women. The outgoing council of ministers only has 9 women. Additionally, I have chosen many youth leaders, so that BJP can prepare for 2024 and beyond, as well as for developing state leaders. This will probably be the youngest council of ministers ever in Indian history. 14 of the Ministers are from other NDA parties.