From Smriti Irani to Nirmala Sitharaman: Women ministers among top guns in Narendra Modi 2.0 Cabinet

The Modi 2.0 cabinet has arrived. Smriti Irani, who was the youngest cabinet minister in 2014 was assigned the high-profile Human Resource Development ministry. She is now been granted the charge of two ministries – Textile and Women and Child Development. Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Shiromani Akali Dal clan has also earned herself a second consecutive term in the cabinet. She has retained charge of the Minister for Food Processing. Nirmala Sitharaman, the second woman to head the defence ministry after former prime minister Indira Gandhi is back in the cabinet as the finance minister.

Irani isn’t an actor-turned-politician who just come out of nowhere and turned Amethi’s 39-year-old political affiliations on its head. After losing to the Congress’ chief Rahul Gandhi by over a lakh votes in 2014, Irani, the losing candidate, she lodged herself in a rented house in Amethi, worked with the farmers, with the women, with the youth and made herself available to the locals round the clock. Old loyalties for the first family faded away and she unseated Gandhi with over 55,000 votes, etching her story in unerasable ink on the canvas of Indian political history. Despite having lost in 2009 to Kapil Sibal in Chandni Chowk and controversies and criticism shrouding her role in multiple ministries in the cabinet, an unfettered Irani marched on.

Shortly after Irani was made human resource minister in 2014, a controversy over the inconsistency in the affidavit detailing her educational details became a subject of speculation and her critics surfaced. She rolled back Delhi University’s Four Years Undergraduate Program, barely a year into its initiation. When she was made Textile Minister, in an exclusive interview, she told Firstpost that the change in her portfolio wasn’t a demotion as it was being made out to be by the media.

“Had I remained in the HRD, my view of administration would have remained myopic. My previous ministry offered me a social sector overview of the country, but education is just one social aspect. This new assignment gives me a more expansive economic perspective on India as it involves dealing with a high-end industry and large corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, and weavers and artisans,” she had shared with Firstpost.

Of approximately 40 schemes , 22 used to be surrendered each year. To ensure that authorised funds reach the weavers, Irani’s ministry enrolled them in Direct Benefit Transfer schemes and eliminated middle-men. For instance, NGOs that had been receiving government funds for years were asked to disclose details of the communities they had been supporting.

Soon enough, Irani was handed over the Information & Broadcasting Ministry. Within 24 hours of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting announcement of a new guideline of suspending a journalist’s accreditation the moment, there is a complaint of fake news, the Prime Minister’s Office intervene d and withdrew the ill-conceived order that posed a threat to the functioning of democracy. Under her leadership, the ministry had issued a press release on Monday that amended guidelines for journalists’ accreditation, stating that if a journalist is found to have ‘created and/or propagated’ fake news, his or her accreditation will be suspended or permanently cancelled.

In the cabinet reshuffle in May 2018, the ministry was handed over to Rajyavardhan Rathore. Her role in multiple ministries have been a roller-coaster ride but her preparedness to work on the ground on policy reform combined with her relentless campaigning and connect with voters has enabled her to retain her space in the cabinet.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the only woman minister who isn’t from the BJP and represents the Shiromani Akali Dal, was a crucial insertion into the Cabinet in terms of political representation to the party that was in power in Punjab in 2014. Despite SAD’s loss to the Congress, the Badals have retained the Bathinda seat from where Harsimrat Kaur had contested. When India has slipped six positions in the India World Hunger Index despite being the second largest producer of food, Firstpost had spoken to Badal.

“When I took charge of the ministry (in 2014), I noticed a lot of policy promise but no ground impact. From 2008 to 2014, only two Mega Food Parks were operationalised. In two years, I have operationalised six,” Badal had said . She had spoken about moving forward in a targeted fashion and setting up infrastructure for farmers and sanctioning cold chains. The Badals were facing anti-incumbency since the assembly elections of 2017 but Harsimrat managed to retain her seat and also BJP’s footing in Punjab.

Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries in the outgoing cabinet, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti was conferred with the title of Mahamandaleshwar of Niranjani Akhara at the Kumbh in Prayagraj earlier this year. The title is the highest level of Hindu spiritual guardianship. Her consecutive berth in the cabinet is a continuity of the unapologetic representation of Hindu forces in decision-making roles.

The two new entries are Renuka Singh Saruta, 58, who was sworn in as a Minister of State in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Deboshree Chowdhury, a first-timer who will serve as a minister of state in Ministry of Women and Child Development. Saruta served in Raman Singh’s government, which was overthrown by the Baghel-led Congress government in 2018 Vidhan Sabha elections.

Her insertion is expected to greatly improve the Central government’s outreach to the tribals in Naxal-infested Chattisgarh. The eviction of tribals from the forest area, blocking access to forest produce and related issues were being raised by various organisations in the run-up to the state elections. Saruta serves as the vice-president of the party’s ST cell and represents the powerful Gond community. Sarguja is the other tribal belt aside from Bastar.

While the grand old party was able to make inroads into Bastar, Sarguja in the Vidhan Sabha election. In the national election too, the Congress retained its stronghold over Bastar but Sarguja is still with the BJP and Saruta’s acceptance by the locals has played a key role in swinging the tribal vote in favour of the BJP in the constituency. Both Bastar and Sarguja fall in the red corridor.

The strongest possible reason for the induction of Chowdhury from West Bengal is to further alternate women leadership to Mamata Banerjee’s. The BJP made deep inroads in TMC’s bastion and won 18 seats. The Trinamool Congress took great pride in fielding 17 (out of 42) women candidates. Encouraging women from non-political backgrounds to join politics and cashing in on their familiarities, be it actress Mimi Chakraborty from the Jadavpur seat from where Mamata had once ousted the Left or Nusrat Jahan from communally sensitive Basirhat on the India-Bangladesh border. Along with Chowdhury, the other woman parliamentarian from the state is Locket Chatterjee. While Chatterjee won by a margin of 73,362 votes against her TMC counterpart Ratna De Nag, while Chowdhury won by 60,574 votes against TMC’s Kanhaiya Lal Agarwal.

Those who have been left out this time are veteran leaders Uma Bharti, Sushma Swaraj and Maneka Gandhi. Former External Affairs Minister, Swaraj had announced her decision not to contest the Lok Sabha polls. Bharti, the former sanitation minister also didn’t contest the polls and was made the BJP’s national vice-president. With party president Amit Shah moving to the cabinet, she could be given a greater role within the party leadership.