Modi abolishes EGoMs, GoMs

• Ministers given freedom to take decisions
• If they fail, PMO will step in
• Meets ministers to push 10-point agenda
• Wants to keep party outfit battle-fit
• Decision soon on new party president

New Delhi: Overturning the UPA legacy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has abolished EGoMs and GoMs for speedy decisions and greater accountability. The ministers will now be encouraged to take appropriate decisions at their level, including the issues pending before the EGoMs and GoMs. If the ministers fail to do so, the PMO will step in and expedite it. Breaking from the past, Modi wants to fast-track the decision-making process, as people are getting increasingly impatient for results.

During the UPA regime, the EGoMs and GoMs arrangement led to disarray and no decisions. It had resulted in two power-centres of Prime Minister and a senior Minister, for instance, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who headed several EGoMs and GoMs, resulting in delaying the decision-making process. Having stormed to power on the twin-planks of good governance and development, Prime Minister Modi wants to focus on governance issues.

Modi has called a meeting of Union Ministers on Monday to review the 10-Point Agenda he has unveiled. The Union Ministers have been asked to come up with a 100-Day Agenda for each Union Ministry. At the meeting, the agenda for the Parliament Session would also be finalised.

Demonstrating that he is the boss, Prime Minister Modi on Saturday held a meeting with the BJP general secretaries, asking them to communicate with the people and to ensure proper coordination within the party and between the party and the government. During the hour-long meeting, Modi is understood to have underscored the need for Party-Government Coordination and the need to keep the party in battle mode. He followed it up with a meeting with BJP president and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, former BJP president and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.

Eyeing the key States of Maharashtra and Haryana, where the BJP did extremely well during the recent parliamentary elections, Modi wants to consolidate on the gains, by wresting power from the Congress in the upcoming Assembly elections due later this year. The RSS, too, wants that the BJP organisation should remain vibrant and strong. In the past, during the Vajpayee Government in 1998-2004, the party was weakened, as all the stalwarts had joined the government and the party had lost its connect with the grassroots.According to party sources, the Prime Minister emphasised that the party organisation should publicise and propagate the government policies and programmes. One of the main reasons identified by the Congress for its disastrous rout during the recent General Election was its failure to publicise its flagship programmes among the people.

Modi wants to boost the BJP programmes, as well. He is keen on both the government and the party planning the upcoming centenary of party ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay during 2015-2016. Modi undertook the exercise to ensure that the organisation remains strong and battle-fit. The meeting was attended even by the three BJP general secretaries, who have since become part of the Modi Government – Chemicals & Fertilizers Minister Anant Kumar, Social Justice & Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Search for a new BJP president is on, with BJP general secretaries Amit Shah and Jagat Prakash Nadda and BJP leader Om Prakash Mathur in the race. The BJP is in for a major revamp. Apart from three BJP general secretaries, BJP president Rajnath Singh, three BJP vice-presidents, Jual Ornam, Uma Bharti and Smriti Irani and BJP treasurer Piyush Goel, And two BJP spokespersons, Prakash Javadekar and Nirmala Sitharaman, have also joined the Modi Government and need to be replaced.