Prime Minister Narendra Modi left the portfolios of a select few top important ministers untouched, while he re-juggled the portfolios of most others and distributed their extra ministries to newcomers, with Arun Jaitley being expectedly divested of defence, but surprisingly being given the Information and Broadcasting ministry instead.
Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley, who had been given the daunting responsibility of looking after the defence portfolio earlier, was finally given some relief with Manohar Parrikar getting the Defence portfolio.
What seemed to reinforce the PM’s faith in Jaitley was the fact that he was given the charge of the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry as well, which may not be too taxing for the current Finance Minister.
Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar was one of the major losers as he was divested of independent charge of I&B and the junior minister-ship of Parliamentary Affairs.
In his new role Jaitley will be in-charge of looking after financial corporate affairs and the betterment of the information & broadcasting ministry.
But what remains a question mark is, if Modi made him relinquish defence to concentrate on the revival of economy and concentrate wholly and solely on the budget making exercise then why burden him with the I&B ministry portfolio as well, which is a critical portfolio from Modi’s perspective!