In the first signs of an impending Union Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped George Kurian from the Council of Ministers after his Rajya Sabha term expired on June 21.
No exit call was given to senior Punjab BJP leader and Minister of State for Railways and Food Processing Ravneet Singh Bittu, whose Rajya Sabha term also ended on June 21, alongside Kurian’s.
While Kurian, Minister of State for Fisheries and Minority Affairs, was representing Madhya Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha, Bittu was a nominee from Rajasthan. The BJP had chosen not to renominate both for the June 18 Rajya Sabha elections, raising the spectre of their exit from the ministerial council.
Kurian put in his papers today and his resignation was accepted by the President.
“The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has accepted the resignation of George Kurian from the Union Council of Ministers with immediate effect under Clause (2) of Article 75 of the Constitution,” a communication from the Rashtrapati Bhavan said. While Kurian will return to work in Kerala, political calculations in view of the 2027 Punjab elections mean that Bittu has not yet been asked to resign.
Under the law, a person can continue as minister for six months from the expiry of the Rajya Sabha term but to stay as minister he would need to return to the House within that six-month period.
Electoral strategy will weigh on the mind of the BJP and the PM when dealing with Bittu’s case as he hails from a prominent Punjab family and himself has a reasonable parliamentary experience in the state as Lok Sabha MP from Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib.
“We need to wait and watch in Bittu’s case,” said a BJP source referring to the upcoming Punjab elections and the minister’s importance in the state.
Bittu (50) is the grandson of the late CM Beant Singh and an influential Jat Sikh face in the state.
Removing a senior Sikh face from the Council of Ministers would be difficult at a time when the BJP is going all out to woo all segments of the Punjab electorate and has appointed Kewal Singh Dhillon, a Sikh, as state unit chief.
