New Delhi: Assembly elections are to be held in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir this year. While there is a BJP government in Haryana, there is an NDA government in Maharashtra. Assembly elections are to be held for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir after the removal of Article 370. This will be a litmus test for the BJP. Then assembly elections are to be held in Delhi early next year. BJP has made 3 ministers from Haryana, 4 from Maharashtra, 2 from Jharkhand, 1 from Jammu and Kashmir and 1 from Delhi from its quota.
60 ministers from BJP and 11 alliance parties
Apart from Modi, a total of 71 ministers were sworn-in. Out of which 60 are from BJP and 11 are from alliance parties. If we look at the state-wise breakdown of 60 ministers from BJP quota, 7 are from UP, 5 from Gujarat, 1 from Himachal, 5 from Madhya Pradesh, 3 from Odisha, 3 from North East, 4 from Bihar, 4 from Rajasthan, 2 from Punjab, 2 from Telangana, 1 from Goa, 2 from Kerala, 1 from Uttarakhand, 2 from West Bengal and 1 from Chhattisgarh.
What for Mission South?
In the last five years, BJP has focused a lot on its Mission South. BJP has also got some results from this. In the NDA Parliamentary Party meeting, Modi said that NDA has strengthened its base in South India. The way BJP suffered a big loss in some states of North India in the Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s Mission South campaign becomes more important. This has also been taken care of in the cabinet distribution. 1 minister from Andhra Pradesh, 3 from Karnataka, Nirmala Sitharaman, L Murugan from Tamil Nadu have been made ministers. Two ministers have been made from Telangana, G Kishan Reddy and Bandi Sanjay. Bandi Sanjay was earlier the state president of Telangana but he/she was replaced and brought into the national team. At that time questions were raised as to why he/she was removed, it was also said that this would cause loss and BJP did not perform as expected in the assembly elections. But in the Lok Sabha elections, BJP won 8 seats in Telangana. BJP has won a Lok Sabha seat for the first time in Kerala. Suresh Gopi won from Thrissur and was included in the cabinet. L Murugan from Kerala has also been made a minister.
