That’s one part of the Modi 2:0 story. The other is that Narendra Modi has this time picked his ministers and given them portfolios which suits the BJP’s agenda. Amit Shah with ‘Home’ will be at home. And having more of the party in him than any BJP Member of Parliament, Shah knows exactly what the BJP and RSS cadre want: Ram Mandir, Article 370 and 35A out the window and a national citizenship register for every state in the Union not just Assam.

These are promises in the BJP manifesto. Modi and Amit Shah know that they cannot beat around the bush any more on Article 370 and 35A; that this is probably the one last chance they’ve to shape the politics played around Jammu & Kashmir; probably also because Pakistan is just now not placed in a good enough position to make an intervention effective enough to make a difference.

Amit Shah also somehow gives the impression of being physically and perception-wise just the man to head the Home Ministry. Besides, if BJP wants to deliver the coup de grace to Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, where the state government runs the state police as if a private police force, Amit Shah with Home will have control over police top brass to play out a script he already has written for Mamata and West Bengal. Kerala could also fall in a Bengal-like category.

Bringing in ex-diplomat S Jaishankar as External Affairs Minister also plays into Modi’s Pakistan and Kashmir policies besides touching on his China policy. Remember these are going to be Modi’s legacy years, 2019-2024 and he must be aiming for solving India’s thorny boundary issues with longtime enemies Pakistan and China. Modi will make a pitch to catapult India into the ‘superpower’ club.

The other big portfolio, Defence, has gone to Rajnath Singh and while Rajnath does not bristle as much as any other BJP man would when it comes to Pakistan, he’ll not depart from a policy scripted by Prime Minister Modi, who took care to see that Rajnath Singh got to sit right next to him at the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Rajnath is the sort of person for whom protocol matters more than anything else. Remember he had got into a tussle with Arun Jaitley precisely on this score: Who is No.2 in the Modi Government?

So, while ‘Defence’ moves to No.2 on the protocol pole, ‘Finance’ stays in the “invitee” category in the Cabinet Committee on Security. Nirmala Sitharaman replaces Arun Jaitley. And Sitharaman seems to be making a habit of following in the wake of Indira Gandhi, being the first woman to be Finance Minister after Indira. Earlier, she was first woman to become Defence Minister after Indira Gandhi. But it is to be seen whether Nirmala plays second fiddle to Narendra Modi as she did when his Defence Minister.

And that will be a problem with this second Modi ministry, too. Ask anybody if there was one minister who stood out for an outstanding stint and grand decision during Modi 1:0 and we’ll draw blank; or we’ll pick Narendra Modi! For, it didn’t matter which portfolio who had, it was always Modi everywhere, in every ministry, from Foreign to Finance, Agriculture to Sport and Skills, and it would likely be the same in Modi 2:0 – Modi ubiquitous, Modi omnipresent.(IPA Service)