Baig tipped to be inducted in Modi's Cabinet "within April"

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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Jammu, March 31: Peoples Democratic Party's Lok Sabha member from North Kashmir and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig is tipped to be inducted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet in the BJP-led NDA government at the  Centre, later this month.

Well placed political sources disclosed to Early Times on Tuesday that Mr Baig would be sworn in as a Cabinet Minister in the Modi government any time before the start of second half of the Budget Session scheduled on April 20. In the second Cabinet reshuffle within his first year in office, Modi would drop some non-performers and pick up some new faces, a few from the NDA allies like Shiv Sena and PDP.

The upcoming session is set to be crucial as the government has to take up the Land Acquisition Bill in the Rajya Sabha that faced stiff opposition in the first half of the Budget Session.

The expansion and reshuffle exercise of the Cabinet will take place after the two day national executive meeting of the BJP, starting on April 3 in Bengaluru. The party's national executive was recently reconstituted and many prominent names, including Union ministers Smriti Irani, Najma Heptulla, actress-turned-politician Hema Malini and others were replaced by new faces.

The BJP has already sealed the deal for power sharing with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir where a coalition of the two parties, headed by Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, assumed office on March 1^st. Sources said that induction of a PDP representative in the Union Cabinet was part of Mufti’s deal with the BJP.

The PDP patron and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had, according to the sources, initially proposed the name of the party President and the Lok Sabha member from South Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti---also his daughter---but it was withdrawn when some BJP leaders opined that it would not send "right signals" within the coalition which had aggressively targeted Farooq Abdullah's "dynastic set up" in J&K. BJP also made clear to Mufti that any party’s President could not be inducted as a Minister as per NDA’s one-man-one-post rule.

Mufti, according to sources, later reconciled to the change after an influential lobby in the BJP put weight behind Mr Baig. However, two of the senior PDP leaders insisted that Ms Mufti was not a contender for a Ministerial position in the NDA government from the beginning.

Reportedly uncomfortable with his migration to the Centre, Mr Baig had reportedly insisted to Mufti that he should be brought back to the State politics and inducted as a Minister in the Cabinet. He had even put in his papers when he was replaced by a junior PDP leader in the thick of PDP’s talks with BJP for the government formation in the wake of his statement in which he had described the issue of the Western Pakistani refugees, settled in Jammu, as a “humanitarian issue”.

PDP is holding all three of Kashmir valley seats in Lok Sabha in addition to two Rajya Sabha members. Former Minister Tariq Hamid Karra is the Lok Sabha member from Central Kashmir.

Union Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla, the senior-most member of Modi's council of ministers, who will turn 75 soon, is likely to be dropped from the Cabinet. It should also be noted that Modi had set up a cut-off age of 75 for ministers in his government. She is likely to be appointed as governor of a state.

MOS Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is likely to get additional portfolio of Minority Affairs in the impending reshuffle.

Earlier, in his first expansion of the Cabinet in November 2014, Modi had inducted 21 new faces. The Cabinet as of now has 26 Union ministers, 13 ministers of state (MoS) with independent charge and 26 other MoS, apart from the PM.

NDA's Maharashtra ally Shiv Sena, which has been demanding more seats in the Union Cabinet, is likely to get a berth for its nominee Anil Desai, who was left out of the Cabinet in the last reshuffle and expansion. He is likely to be inducted as MOS with independent charge.

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