Yesterday, 71 NDA leaders took their oath in the Council of Ministers along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Surprisingly, some well-known faces did not make it into the cabinet this time. One notable absence was the leader who managed the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Modi’s previous term. Despite having a strong portfolio, he wasn’t even made a Minister of State this time, even though he won his seat and Himachal Pradesh gave all its four seats to BJP. Let’s understand why.
Anurag Thakur has been the MP from the Hamirpur seat in Himachal since 2008. He was first elected in a by-election in 2008 and then continuously since 2009. In the previous government, he held two significant ministries and had a good electoral track record. Anurag Thakur comes from a political family; his father, Prem Kumar Dhumal, is a former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. Thakur also performed well in the recent election, defeating Congress’s Satpal Singh Raijada by around 183,000 votes.
So, why wasn’t he given even a Minister of State post this time? There are two possible reasons. Firstly, JP Nadda’s inclusion in the cabinet. Nadda is also from Himachal and now represents the state in the cabinet. Although he is a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, he hails from Himachal, and usually, such a small state doesn’t have two ministers. Another interesting point is that back in 2010, when Anurag Thakur’s father was the Chief Minister, Nadda was the Forest Minister, and their relationship wasn’t very good, leading to Nadda’s resignation.
When Nadda was a minister from 2014 to 2019, Anurag Thakur had an organizational role within the BJP. It is expected that after the BJP’s presidential election, Thakur will receive an important organizational role again.
Moreover, there are talks about Thakur’s internal report not being favorable. Recently, BJP lost in the by-elections held in Sujanpur, Kutlahar, and Gagret assembly constituencies, which fall under Thakur’s Hamirpur parliamentary constituency, causing discontent within a faction of BJP Himachal.
Additionally, this time BJP has to work with its alliance partners to run the government. During the election campaign, Amit Shah actually hinted that Thakur would be included in the cabinet again. In a rally in Una district, Himachal Pradesh, Shah said that people request him to make their MP a minister and “Modiji has given you the Minister itself…”. At that time BJP was confident that it would win over 400 seats, but the actual results said something else and required giving importance and attention to NDA allies.
It’s also possible that the performance of the ministries Thakur handled in Modi’s second term needed reforms, contributing to the decision.
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