Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a big reshuffle in his cabinet to accommodate 36 new ministers and promote 7 ministers. The total tally of ministers stands at 77. The big change did shake up things in the government but the three high-profile exits created far more buzz than the induction of the new ministers. Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister for Law and Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar submitted their resignation just hours before the oath-taking ceremony.

What has cost the big 3 their jobs?

Dr Harsh Vardhan

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who quit his post just an hour before the cabinet reshuffle along with his deputy Ashwani Chaube, has been facing a lot of criticism over the alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. The resignations of the top two of the health ministry was, according to the opposition, a “candid confession” by the government that it failed to manage the Covid crisis.

“The resignations of the Union Health Minister and the MoS Health is a candid confession that the Modi government has utterly failed in managing the pandemic,” Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram tweeted soon after their exit. Many, however, see Dr Harsh Vardhan’s removal as a face-saving exercise by the government after the deadly second wave of COVID-19.

Many, however, see Dr Harsh Vardhan’s removal as a face-saving exercise by the government after the deadly second wave of COVID-19. “Poor Dr. Harsh Vardhan, a good man has been made a scapegoat for monumental failures at the highest level — nowhere else,” Congress’s Jairam Ramesh tweeted.

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Ravi Shankar Prasad

Minister for Law and Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, who has been a minister in almost all the NDA governments and handled several portfolios, also exited the cabinet just before the oath ceremony. He had, in the last few months, been locked in a bitter row with Twitter over the new IT rules for digital media platforms. The new rules or the so-called Intermediary Guidelines, announced in February, are aimed at regulating content on social media firms such as Facebook (FB.O), its WhatsApp messenger and Twitter, making them more accountable to legal requests for swift removal of posts and sharing details on the originators of messages.

Prasad was briefly locked out of his Twitter account last month and he took to the micro-blogging site to raise questions over the incident. Twitter cited ‘copyright infringement’ under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as the reason for the locking of his account. The account, however, was restored soon after.

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Prakash Javadekar

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, who is the government’s spokesperson and, like Ravi Shankar Prasad, was inducted in most of the NDA cabinets, also stepped down in a surprise move.The reason for his exit is not known but, according to political experts, he could have been moved to give way to the new faces for political benefits in the coming elections.

The key minister who exited the government to “make way” for the new faces include DV Sadananda Gowda, Thawarchand Gehlot (he was named Governor), Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Babul Supriyo, Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao, Rattan Lal Kataria and Pratap Chandra Sarangi.

The exercise is seen as PM Modi’s master move to send out a message to the ministers and the public – performance is the key.