Whenever the size of the Lok Sabha is increased to 850, the ruling party will be able to have 127.5 MPs (a cap of 15 per cent of the size of the Lok Sabha, as per Article 75 (1A) or the 91st Amendment of the Constitution) as ministers. But where will their portfolios come from?
Governments find this a difficult problem even now when they are allowed 81 ministers (15 per cent of 543). Imagine having to find 47.5 more portfolios, or 127.5 in all. One must feel sorry for the prime ministers of the future.
On the other hand, they may well feel quite happy because they can oblige more MPs from their party or of their coalition partners. That they can do this at the expense of the taxpayers would be the icing on the cake.
But patronage aside, the original question remains: where will the portfolios come from? As it is we slice and dice areas to find ministerial positions for the needy. So what should be one ministry becomes three or four.
Take transport, for example. We have a minister for the railways, a minister for shipping, a minister for road transport and a minister for civil aviation. Likewise, we have a minister for coal, mines, oil, power and alternative energy. We also have ministers for industry, MSMEs, steel, textiles, etc.
To see how ridiculous this is, compare it to the defence ministry. Would you like to have a separate minister for the army, navy, air force and missiles? Or would you like the ministry of external affairs to be broken up in some arbitrary way just to give a ministerial position to some politician?
If not, why break up other inter-related areas? It is clear that good sense prevails where national security is concerned but not where the economy is concerned. Jobs for the boys is all very well but what about good governance, policy, administration, etc?
Two ways out
Obviously, there are two ways out of this absurd situation. One is to reduce the number of ministers currently allowed to 10 per cent from 15 per cent. But even that at 54.3 or 85 in the future might be too many.
The other is to re-integrate ministries to what they used to be. Or, actually, if possible do both. The cabinet rank vs MoS thing is not really the answer.
The two alternatives might look the same but actually they have very different consequences. One set is political, the other set is administrative. And they work oppositely to each other in that the more political you get by having more ministers, the worse your governance becomes.
The basic problem is overlapping jurisdictions. It’s bad enough that the Concurrent List of the Constitution creates a lot of such jurisdictions. But if you have too many ministries you end up compounding the problem.
As a result a huge amount of time is spent by the Prime Minister’s Office — and sometimes a specially designated person like the chairman of the PMEAC — on inter-ministerial coordination. So what can be done in two weeks with a clear chain of command and accountability, can take six months or more or, worse, never get done.
If this is how it is now, imagine how much worse it will become with more ministers and ministries, both at the Central and the State levels. It will be a wholly unworkable system created solely to satisfy party functionaries who want the status and perks of ministerial office.
The competence problem
The other looming cloud, as yet distant but approaching inexorably, is of competence. Can a prime minister find 127.5 men and women who have the competence to be effective ministers? Is it any coincidence that Narendra Modi has had to turn to non-politicians from the bureaucracy to be ministers?
So future prime ministers are going to be even more hard pressed because to be effective as a minister it’s not enough to be able to win an election. Nor is it always possible to oblige the parent bodies of a political party by making their nominees ministers.
In the end it’s the prime minister who has to run the government and if his council of ministers comprises persons who don’t understand government and laws and rules and judiciary, it’s he or she who will face the anti-incumbency issue. A prime minister, in matters of governance, is only as good as his ministers. If they find it hard to deliver with 80 ministers in attendance, how much worse is it going to be with 120 of them messing up?
It’s not a prospect that brings any cheer.
Published on May 11, 2026