When taking over as chief minister in 2019 Reddy had made it clear that midway through the term he would reshuffle the team so as to give another lot of MLAs the opportunity to serve as ministers. When the first lot of ministers resigned, they were well aware that some of them would not be drafted in the new ministerial team. So the protests that have erupted, including some resignations from the party, are from among those that were not included in the second team.
The move of replacing ministers was aimed at allowing about one third of the YSR Congress MLAs to serve as ministers during the term. While this was a purely political reason of keeping as many MLAs as possible happy, such a change of the cabinet can also play another role, where it prods the first lot of ministers to perform to their best with the aim of retaining a position in the cabinet and also permits the chief minister to gauge which MLAs can perform better, allowing a more balanced and high quality team to take charge in a second term or whenever the party wins an election. In the new cabinet there are 14 new faces, while 11 ministers have been retained.
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A move such as a complete reshuffle where all the ministers are asked to resign also has an element of risk involved, except when the chief minister is very strong and has complete control of the party or the party itself calls the shots, leaving little room for rebellion. In that respect, Jagan Mohan Reddy is the undisputed leader of the YSR Congress and he perhaps believed that his previous cabinet colleagues would have accepted the changes he would make. It didn’t work that way, leading to protests and giving rise to the possibility of dissension that could even weaken his leadership, unless he takes a firm stand on this and is able to quell the protests.
A midterm reset of the cabinet can, however, prove to be a very useful tool to keep the ministers on their toes. It can achieve various things – correct the government image, improve the government performance and politically help the party gear up for the polls. It is always likely that after a couple of years complacency can seep into the cabinet, so a reshuffle could take care of that. The expectation always is that the new ministers will aim to deliver and show what they are capable off, performing better than their predecessor. A reshuffle also sends out the message to the ministers that they cannot take their place in the council of ministers for granted.
Goa could do with such a practice of a midterm reshuffle. The current cabinet has just one new face with all the others having served as ministers in the past. The choice of minister in Goa has been based on seniority, past ministerial experience and not necessarily performance, and the control that the MLA may have over a cluster of constituencies which makes that particular member indispensible to the party’s future plans. Goa, therefore, has a very lopsided regional imbalance that perhaps needs to be corrected at some point of time in the future. The aim of the government is to deliver on the promises made and if the possibility of a ministerial reshuffle where there will be promotions and demotions gets ministers to work harder, there will not be objections. Can Goa follow such a system?
