(-Harsh Sanghavi, youngest member of the ministry, would be the Minister of State (MoS), Home. In Gujarat, MoS Home is a crucial post and was once held by Amit Shah)
It's not only the caste management; that's the beauty of a smooth political management. And it has clear Narendra Modi stamp!
The saffron party leadership believes the long anti-incumbency mood would dilute if not disappear. But the new Council of Ministry is definitely younger.
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| Nationalism, Macho Hindu, Master of Surprises |
Caste, Regional aspirations, Youths - The Modi-Shah Gamebit
Patidars
Arvind Rayani (Leuva)
Jitu Vaghani (Leuva)
Vinoo Mordia (Leuva)
Raghavji Patel (Leuva)
Hrishikesh Patel (kadva)
Brijesh Merja (kadva)
Bhupendra Patel (kadva Patel)
REGIONWISE BREAK UP
North Gujarat
(1) Hrishikesh Patel, Visnagar - Patel
(2) Gajendra Parmar, Pratinj - OBC
(3) Kirit Singh Vaghela, Kankraj - Kshatriya
South Gujarat
(1) Naresh Patel, Ganadevi - ST
(2) Kanu Desai, Pardi - Brahmin
(3) Jitu Chaudhary, Kaprada - ST
(4) Harsh Sanghvi, Majura - Jain
(5) Mukesh Patel, Olpad - Koli Patel
(6) Vinu Mordia, Qatargam - Patel
Saurashtra
(1) Arvind Raiyani, Rajkot - Patel
(2) Raghavaji Patel, Jamnagar - Patel
(3) Brijesh Merja, Morbi - Patel
(4) Deva Malam, Kolik - Keshod
(5) Kirit Singh Rana, Limbdi - Kshatriya
(6) R.C. Makwana, Bhavnagar -Koli
(7) Jitu Vaghani, Bhavnagar West - Patel
Central Gujarat
(1) Jagdish Panchal, Nicole OBC
(2) Nimisha Suthar, Morva Hadaf - ST
(3) Pradeep Parmar, Asarwa - SC
(4) Arjun Singh Chauhan, Mehmadwad - OBC
(5) Kuber Dindor, Santrampur - ST
(6) Manisha Advocate - SC
(7) Rajendra Trivedi, Brahmini
The average age of the outgoing Vijay Rupani Cabinet was 60.5, for the new ministry it is 53.4 years.
The BJP has decided not only to replace Chief Minister Rupani, a Jain by a Patidar, the entire council of ministry has been overhauled.
Seven of the new ministers belong to OBC communities, while seven are Patidars. There are four tribals, and two each from the Brahmin, Kshatriya and Dalit communities, apart from one Jain. Rupani was a compromise candidate in 2016 and was the first Jain Chief Minister of Gujarat. Two are women — a Dalit and a tribal.
Only three in the government of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, a first-time MLA who took oath on September 13, have held ministerial posts earlier.
Those dropped included powerful Deputy CM Nitin Patel, who for long saw himself as a potential Chief Minister. Asked if he and leaders were aggrieved over the changes, Nitin Patel could hardly say: “If some community, an individual or district gets disgruntled, then it is not my responsibility now to look into it.”
The BJP has handled ‘disgruntled’ elements in Gujarat – considered a Hindutva laboratory where there was a mayhem in 2002 and none other than Narendra Modi had ruled the state from October 2001 to May 2014.
The BJP is in power in this crucial western state since 1995 and of course it narrowly survived a major onslaught in 2017 from Congress party.
The new No. 2 in the 25-member Cabinet is Rajendra Trivedi, who was Assembly Speaker till Thursday, Sept 16. A lawyer by profession, the legislator from Raopura in Vadodara had defended several accused in the 2002 Best Bakery massacre case.
Dropping of some ministers who were once seen as close to industrial houses and also PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is a significant move.
BJP’s Gujarat in-charge Bhupender Yadav, also newly inducted central Minster under Modi, says it was a “democratic experiment” for the development of the party and for creating a new leadership.
Surprising like these have been PM Modi’s hallmark; only the scale varies.
Even at the central level, the Prime Minister had sprang major surprises in selecting his ministers. In 2014 – he made Smriti Irani the new HRD Minister. In 2017, Nirmala Sitharaman was made India’s first Defence Minister and yet again in 2019, when he took oath for the second time Ms Sitharaman was made country’s first woman Finance Minister.
Now in the run up to the 2022 assembly polls, these changes in Gujarat ministry have surprises BJP leaders, foot soldiers, admirers and also foes.
Interestingly, the caste management and bringing new and younger faces have muted the opposition Congress and even vocal Hardik Patel is unable to draw much media mileage. “Modi has ensured that the initiatives are all with us.... Congress will be only reacting. The AAP is already speechless,” said a senior BJP leader in Delhi.
Three of the new ministers had won on Congress tickets in the 2017 Assembly elections before crossing over to the BJP — Raghavji Patel, Jitu Chaudhary and Brijesh Merja. The Rupani ministry too had three Congress turncoats.
There are 10 Cabinet-rank, five ministers of state (MoS) with Independent charge and nine MoS in the new ministry, apart from Bhupendra Patel, 59, himself. Along with Trivedi, 67, just Raghavji Patel and Kiritsinh Rana have previously served as ministers.
An MLA from Jamnagar (Rural), Raghavji was one of the Congress MLAs who is believed to have ‘cross voted’ in favour of BJP candidates during the high-voltage Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections of August 2017, which the late Ahmed Patel narrowly won.
The 10 Cabinet ministers include Trivedi (Raopura MLA); Jitu Vaghani (Bhavnagar West); Rushikesh Patel (Visnagar); Purnesh Modi (Surat West); Raghavji Patel (Jamnagar Rural); Kanu Desai (Pardi); Kiritsinh Rana (Limbdi); Naresh Patel (Gandevi); Pradip Parmar (Asarva); and Arjunsinh Chauhan (Mahemdavad).
The new Health Minister is Rushikesh, while Majura legislator Harsh Sanghavi has been named MoS, Home.
The OBC ministers are Purnesh Modi (Surat West), who had filed a defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi; Arjunsinh Chauhan (Mahemdavad); Jagdish Panchal (Nikol); Mukesh Patel (Olpad); Gajendra Parmar (Prantij); Raghavji Makwana (Mahuva); and Devabhai Malam (Keshod).
Apart from the CM himself, the Patidars in the ministry include former BJP president Jitu Vaghani (Bhavnagar West); Rushikesh (Visnagar); Brijesh Merja (Morbi); Arvind Raiyani (Rajkot East); Raghavji Patel (Jamnagar Rural); and Vinod Moradiya (Katargam). It was from Visnagar in Mehsana that the Patidar reservation agitation led by Hardik Patel had first come into prominence.
The tribal ministers include Naresh Patel (Gandevi); Jitu Chaudhary (Kaprada); Nimisha Suthar (Morva Hadaf); and Kuber Dindor (Santrampur). The Dalit community is represented by Pradip Parmar (Asarva) and Manisha Vakil (Vadodara City). (some names and paras taken from ‘Indian Express’ report)
Visnagar MLA Rishikesh Patel has been given Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education as well as Water Resources and Water Supply.
-Surat West MLA Purnesh Modi will handle Roads and Building, Transport, Civil Aviation, Tourism and Pilgrimage Development.
-Jamnagar Rural MLA Raghavji Patel will handle Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.
-Limbdi MLA Kiritsinh Rana has been given Forest, Environment, Climate Change, and Printing and Stationery departments.
-Gandevi MLA Naresh Patel will hold Tribal Development and Food and Civil Supply.
CM Bhupendra Patel will hold the charge of Home, General Administration Department, Information and Broadcast, Industries, Mines and Minerals, Capital Projects, Urban Development, Urban Housing and Narmada and Ports,
-No 2 in Cabinet, but no formal Deputy CM ::: Rajendra Trivedi, who was Assembly speaker during the previous Vijay Rupani government, has been allocated Revenue, Law and Justice, and Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs departments as a cabinet-rank minister.
-Asarwa MLA Pradip Parmar has been made Social Justice and Empowerment Minister.
-Arjunsinh Chauhan has been allocated the Rural Development and Rural Housing.
-Harsh Sanghavi, youngest member of the ministry, would be the Minister of State (MoS), Home. He would also handle the Disaster Management and Police Housing.
The challenge of ‘narco jihad’ – wheels within wheels
Kerala Bishop’s remarks come in the wake of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, a major drug hub.
At the SCO Summit through a video link, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did express concern that Afghanistan could soon face "uncontrolled flow of drugs".
The credit for coining the word "narcotic jihad" belongs to a Catholic bishop in Kerala, the political homeland of communists, where Christians, Hindus and Muslims co-exist peacefully.
Bishop Joseph Kallarangattu of Palai has sparked a major row in the Marxist-ruled state by raking the twin issues of love jihad and narcotic jihad.
While love jihad suggests that radical Muslims woo non-Muslim women to marriage, and to terrorism, narcotic jihad accuses hardline Muslims of operating drag syndicates to destroy young non-Muslims.
The Bishop's statements coming in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan where the narcotics trade had flourished has made security agencies in India roll up their sleeves.
“They [radical groups] have realized that in a nation like India, taking up weapons and destroying others isn't easy and thus, they're using other means,” the bishop said.
The term love jihad has been used for over a decade in Kerala. In fact, this has turned into a major social malady with policemen in the state and various central agencies suggesting that the young women are also taken overseas and forcefully deployed in illicit work and often utilized for giving the ‘healing touch’ to Islamic terrorists.
The bishop has added a new aspect to the controversy with his term "narcotic jihad."
Muslims are predictably annoyed with him and marched to the house of the Bishop of Kottayam, Kerala, recently to register their protest.
State police under the government-run by the Communist Party of India (Marxists) have filed a case against him based on the complaint of a Muslim group.
Chief Minister Pinyari Vijayan also has criticized him.
A Muslim student group, Samastha Kerala Sunni Students Federation, asked the bishop to come up with evidence to prove his allegations.
Christians in Kerala as in the rest of India have their issues against Hindu fundamentalists, especially those either sympathetic to the BJP or that directly link themselves to the saffron political party headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other such Hindu organizations.
Issues related to the work of Christian missionaries and violent opposition to cow slaughter, beef eating and assaults on church leaders and priests from time to time have been bothering Christian society in Kerala and elsewhere in the country.
Therefore, to many, it’s an irony of contemporary socio-political history that a respectable bishop, heading a socially and politically significant diocese like Palai, is now speaking a language that echoes pro-Hindu leaders.
Several communist and Muslim leaders and intellectuals therefore readily vent opinion saying the bishop is only helping Hindu fanaticism in the country. Some see political connotations of BJP support in his statement.
But it is also worth mentioning that Christian bodies have also written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking an inquiry into “planned and well-executed conversion activities after trapping girls from other communities."
The Christian Association and Alliance for Social Action based in Kerala said last year “The Left and the Right [Congress-led alliance] are competing to appease jihadists by covertly and overtly justifying the form of terrorism known as love jihad. We should not allow the jihadists to grow in their [Left and Congress] shadow. For that, we need to cut down the trees that provide them shelter".
“The Bishop's remarks are part of a ploy to divide Christians and Muslims,” remarked Trinamool Congress leader Idris Ali in West Bengal.
This statement is also endorsed by a Delhi-based Muslim trader. "The BJP is trying to breach Kerala's secular fortress by taking the help of Christian priests and bishops," the businessman said.
On the other hand, Naga Christian politicians say the issue of Islamic jihadi elements trying to trigger major law and order problems and communal tension in the northeast is nothing new, and remains a concern.
Had these comments including the remarks from the bishop come a few months prior to the Kerala assembly elections, it would have been easier to relate the rhetoric to political one-upmanship of the heat and dust of electioneering.
But elections in Kerala were held only in April-May and the Marxist veteran leader Vijayan-led Left Front is back in power.
In the run-up to the polls, such rhetoric and statements and counter-statements went on for months.
PM Modi himself had referred to Biblical Judas and said "Judas had betrayed Lord Christ for a few pieces of silver ... just like that Left Democratic Front government has betrayed Kerala for a few pieces of gold."
At the time, Modi quoting Bible was interpreted as part of his effort to woo Christian votes for his party.
But now that the recent statement has come from someone considered "apolitical," there are voices from the rational school of thought who want to give importance to the remarks about the prevailing narcotic jihad threat.
“Muslims would do well to start soul searching. The bishop in question is not a political man. He has only vented his genuine concerns. It would be wrong to dismiss the remarks either as alarmist or something prejudiced to help BJP’s politics,” says political observer Ramakanto Shanyal in West Bengal.
Tom Vadakkan, BJP spokesman and a Catholic, also supports the bishop. "The intervention by the bishop is not just a wake-up call for his dioceses, it is the voice of the community who are victims of love jihad and the fallout of narco-terrorism. The cases of love jihad and drug abuse victims are ramping up."
There are reports that the gravity of the bishop’s statement is being analyzed and judged from the sense of timing by security agencies.
“To say that the narco trade is strongly related to Islamic terror groups is only to point out at the tip of an iceberg,” a federal Home Ministry official told UCAN on the condition of anonymity.
The recent development in Afghanistan has only alarmed countries such as Russia, Israel and even Iran that the narcotics trade would grow by leaps and bounds in the region, he said.
Indian officials believe narco money is already being used in the country to foment various anti-government and anti-national protests and agitation.
“The sad part is in most of these cases, those who oppose PM Modi are blinded so much by their dislike of him and the BJP, that they ignore where the financing is coming from,” said the official.
History has time and again served as a reminder that the perpetrators of violence — including some ultra-Left Maoist groups in India — often find themselves at the receiving end.
No movement, social or anti-national, can be sustained without considerable backing from moneyed resources.
The government officials say once the demonetization of high-value currency notes was announced in 2016 and the Covid-inflicted economic crisis during the last two years globally, things have dried up.
Some of these organizations including terror groups and sympathizers of militancy either in Kashmir, the northeast or Islamic groups in northern states are now desperate for funding.
The drug business is booming in India in various vulnerable states such as Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Christian-dominated northeastern states and hence the bishop’s statements merit being taken sincerely.
Even drug abuse in the film industries in Mumbai and southern states such as Karnataka make news from time to time.
Therefore, it is truly a correction time by law-enforcing agencies and social philanthropists. The government authorities at various levels need to coordinate and draw up strategies to deal with the new challenge.
But the problems as of today lie with the political class. They are the same old stuff banking on a well-known mechanism called the credit-seeking and blame-giving game.
There is simmering tension in many parts of India for several reasons and conflicts. In more ways than one, religious, multiple caste and ethnic groups conflict among themselves in various parts of the country. The alleged use of drug money by some organizations only reflects the complexities.
These remain a challenge but are just beyond the ordinary comprehension of policymakers and bureaucrats.
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