All the ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state government have submitted their resignations to party president to pave way for reshuffle in the cabinet, days after its two ministers were ousted from the council of minister for attending a rally in support of accused in rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl of Kathua.
A senior party leader said the decision for the reshuffle had already been taken by the party leadership in New Delhi.
“There is no threat to the coalition. The party wants to bring in some new faces in the government and it had already been communicated to the state leaders,” said the party leader.
This will be the first major reshuffle in the cabinet after Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP government came to power in Jammu and Kashmir in April 2016.
The BJP’s strategist for the state, Ram Madhav held meetings last Saturday with state’s top BJP and RSS leaders in Jammu to get feedback regarding performance of the party ministers.
“The issue (of reshuffle) came up for discussion during the meeting following which the ministers submitted their resignation. The performance of the party ministers was also discussed in detail during the meeting,” the leader said.
Another party leader said entire team of BJP ministers have submitted their resignations.
“This (reshuffle) was on cards for a long time,” he said, adding though the composition of the new team of ministers hasn’t been finalised yet, some ministers from present team were likely to be retained.
At present, besides the chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, the PDP has 10 ministers in the state cabinet including newly inducted Tassaduq Hussain Mufti.
While the BJP had only five minister in the cabinet following the resignation of Choudhary Lal Singh and Chandra Prakash Ganga for their participation in pro-rapist rally in Kathua.
The BJP’s ally Sajad Lone is also in the council of ministers. There are two junior ministers from the PDP in the government while the BJP had three junior ministers.