Speculation over Cabinet reshuffle, Parrikar for Defence?

Amid speculation that he may be inducted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar met the PM on late Wednesday evening.

However, after the meeting he denied a possibility of a change in his role.

There have been reports that a Cabinet expansion is likely to take place before the Winter Session of Parliament which begins on the November 24 and some ministers holding multiple charges may be divested of their extra portfolios. Parrikar's name was mentioned as a possible Defence Minister. However, he said that his discussions with Narendra Modi only pertained to Goa and nothing else.

Parrikar, who had met BJP President Amit Shah at his residence, left for Delhi in the morning cancelling a Cabinet meeting that was to take up the issue of mining lease policy. Haryana BJP leader Virendra Singh, a prominent Jat face of the party who has left Congress to join it before Haryana Assembly elections, also met Shah in the evening.