Modi to expand Cabinet tomorrow

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Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will go in for a Cabinet expansion on Saturday. Sources claim it is not just the CBI investigations in the Sohrabuddin case and the arrest of Amit Shah that is bothering Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
Local self-governing bodies go to polls by year-end in the state and if he fails to perform, his political future may become shaky. The non-compromising Gujarat chief minister will give in to demands of MLAs and go in for a further expansion of his Cabinet on Saturday.
Sources confirmed Mr Modi will try to quell dissidence of his MLAs thereby consolidate the party and improve the victory margins in the forthcoming elections.
A staunch believer in stars, Mr Modi will expand his Cabinet on August 21 at 12.39 pm which is the Vijay Muhrat.
“The state government has intimated the Raj Bhavan about expansion of the Cabinet,” a senior bureaucrat in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) confirmed.
Mr Modi is likely to induct a three to nine ministers in his Cabinet. At the moment there are 17 ministers in his Cabinet including himself. These include 10 Cabinet-rank and seven ministers of state.
After Mr Amit Shah’s arrest in the Sohrabuddin case, Mr Modi’s Cabinet is clearly divided into two sections. One section unabashedly is anti Amit Shah and justifies his arrest. The other section believes this has dented the Modi government’s image.
With the latest Cabinet expansion, Mr Modi wants to clearly give a message that his council of ministers is united and with him. He will induct mostly new faces keeping in mind various regional and caste parameters besides Hindutva as a concurrent theme in the selection of new ministers.
Sources claimed that Mr Modi has not discussed his entire list with one person but has sought opinion from different people about the potential MLAs who should be inducted in his ministry.
With this expansion, Mr Modi expects to conquer and give a stunning performance in the forthcoming elections. Elections to six municipal corporations in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Surat and Rajkot are due in October. Besides this, 24 district panchayats, 209 taluka panchayats and 59 Nagarpalikas go to polls by December-end.