A reshuffle in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s component of Mehbooba Mufti’s cabinet is in the offing, necessitated by recent resignation of two disgraced ministers from the government over their support to the accused in the Kathua gang-rape and murder of a child, BJP sources said.
The BJP’s national general secretary and chief architect of BJP-PDP coalition government in the state, Ram Madhav, is likely to visit Jammu on April 22 to attend a meeting of the party legislators and convey names of replacements for Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga and some other changes in portfolios.
“In the meeting, the party leaders will be informed about the names of the members being finalised by the high command for induction into the council of ministers,” BJP insiders said.
“We cannot say much about our coalition partner PDP, but this will be the major reshuffle in the BJP, as some new faces may be given chance, while some ministers may be rested and the portfolios of some may be changed,” sources said.
“Everything will be finalised in Delhi very soon”.
The sources said Ram Madhav before returning to Delhi on Saturday held closed-door meetings with some of the state’s top BJP and RSS leaders in Jammu and took detailed feedback regarding functioning of the ministers besides discussing some probable names who could be inducted into the council of ministers.
RSS leader Parshotam Dedeechi also attended the meeting besides the BJP state vice president Avinash Rai Khanna, deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh general secretary Ashok Koul, health minister Bali Bhagat and state president Sat Sharma.
“Detailed discussions were held on the probable names as well as the present scenario, especially in the aftermath of Rasana (Kathua) incident,” sources said.
“Working of the party ministers and their performance was also discussed in detail in the meeting.”
Speaker, Legislative Assembly and MLA Gandhi Nagar, Kavinder Gupta, when confirmed to Greater Kashmir that Madhav was most likely to visit Jammu on April 22 “to hold the all important meeting”.