It is clear that there is a generational change in the BJP. Nothing clearly illustrates this than the composition of the latest cabinet at the Centre. Of the 70-odd ministers in the Narendra Modi cabinet, only four ministers had served as ministers in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1999-2004 vintage.
On Wednesday, in a very surprising move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dropped several Vajpaye-Advani era ministers in one stroke. Seniors like Prakash Javdekar, Ravishankar Prasad, Dr Harsh Vardhan, ramesh Pokhrial, Santosh Gangwar and Sadananda Gowda were shown the door. Interestingly, except Sadananda Gowda, all the others were junior ministers then.
With this, only four ministers of Vajpayee era still remain in Modi cabinet. They are – Rajnath Singh, who was agriculture minister then and is defence minister now, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Sripad Naik and Prahlad Singh Patel. Of these four, only Rajnath Singh was a cabinet minister then.
There were several Vajpayee-era ministers in Modi 1.0 cabinet. Ministers like Menaka Gandhi, Uma Bharti, Anant Gite, Suresh Prabhu, Rajiv Pratap Rudi and Vijay Goel had served in both Modi 1.0 and Vajpayee cabinet. They have all been dropped in Modi 2.0. Ministers like Arun Jaitley, Ananta Kumar, Sushma Swaraj and Ram Vilas Paswan have passed away. The present vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu too has served in Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet and Modi 1.0 cabinet.
Thus most other leaders are actually Modi-generation ministers and several of the ministers are less than 58 years of age. The average age of the current cabinet has come down from 61 to 58.
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