Triggering off speculation about the long-awaited Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Home Minister Amit Shah and party President J.P. Nadda on Friday.
The meeting assumed even more significance after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's meetings with the same personages in the national capital. A reshuffle in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls next year, is also not being ruled out.
Thereafter, meetings took place with small groups of five-six ministers where their work was evaluated and discussed. It appears that the impending reshuffle may finally take place either on June 13 or June 20.
The names of Sarbananda Sonowal, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Chirag Paswan, Trivendra Singh Rawat, Anupriya Patel, Sushil Modi, Meenakshi Lekhi, Jayant Sinha, Mahesh Jethmalani, Rajiv Ranjan and Lallan Singh were discussed as possible new inductees.
Of these, leaders like Anupriya Patel, Jayant Sinha and Sonowal have earlier been in the Union Cabinet.
Many of the existing ministers have multiple portfolios, some of which may be shed in favour of the new inductees. The portfolios which could see changes include:
* Industry and commerce
* Law
* Agriculture
* HRD
* Civil aviation
* Steel
* Food processing
However, Defence, Home and Finance will clearly remain the same as none is likely to be disturbed.