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Will he or won't he? Speculators are trading heavily in Indian political markets. Does Prime Minister need to recast his cabinet and restructure the BJP? And with nine states, including Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, going to polls before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, there is no time better than now to lobby for prominence. At stake are a possible revamp of the Union Cabinet and a reorganisation of the party structure, with President JP Nadda's term ending this month. It is a momentous occasion in the calendar of a politician's life. An opportunity to be presented, freshly groomed, as a live mannequin in the show window of Prime Minister Modi's government. There is, however, one big problem. Ever since Modi took over in 2014, the system of patronage has been dismantled ruthlessly, stripped of the political logic that used to guide it: states going to the elections would get a higher share of the cabinet, identity quotas, and even corporate considerations. None of those is applicable any longer.

Prime Minister Modi has changed the narrative of Indian politics from dynasty to meritocracy, entitlement to quiet effort, and individual fiefdoms to a redeemed republic. If the inner workings of this redeemed republic are hard to read for those used to politics as usual, so be it; if hopefuls who descend on Delhi on occasion to market themselves and hawk their wares are routinely disappointed, so be it; if those looking to be adjusted in the well-worn politics of compromise are turned away, so be it.

Predicting the actions of the Prime Minister is like venturing into a lion's den. He strikes lethally when he is visibly calm and composed. For the past nine years, his selection of ministers and key officers has defied all political punditry, and even the tried and tested twin principles of eligibility and winnability. In some cases, even the essential qualification of ideological identification with the Leader has been overlooked. Could anyone have predicted that Modi would induct a voluntarily retired IAS officer into his cabinet and hand over key portfolios to him? Could any of the dime-a-dozen fortune tellers who once haunted the city's power corridors have hinted that a woman would not only become India's first female defence minister and finance minister? Or that a woman would head the erstwhile human resource development ministry.

When creating an administrative algorithm, Modi has beaten the super techs hollow. His team delivers the results as commended by his directions and directives. Most of them perform according to a template designed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Each ministry's policy and key administrative decisions are first conceived in the PMO and then delivered by the individual ministers. It is the Prime Minister who speaks authoritatively on each subject. He leads from the front and thinks outside of the box. Unlike other leaders in the past, Modi is a 24X7 prime minister for all 365 days. Barring a few, most of the ministers are either invisible or barely performing assets. On paper, though, he leads a 77-member council of ministers. Of them, 28 are cabinet ministers, two are ministers of state with independent charge, and 47 are ministers of state. The composition doesn't reflect any pattern, whether regional, gender, community or religious. There is no playbook he follows, no rulebook that others can decipher. It is a palimpsest, and only he can write the story of Indian politics that he wants to tell.

He has retained more than a dozen ministers from his first term as prime minister. He is perhaps the first prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru who has used his power to reshape and reshuffle his cabinet the least number of times. During 2014-19, he did it thrice. But so far, he has tinkered with his team only once. Atal Behari Vajpayee revamped his team four times during his last five years. Normally, prime ministers indulge in reinventing their teams on the eve of elections to ward off anti-incumbency against inefficient ministers, correct regional imbalances or accommodate a few leaders from the states going to the polls. But Modi doesn't suffer from such infirmities, as the elections, both for the Lok Sabha and in the states, are won in his name, by him and for him.

The slogan Double Engine Sarkar was coined by Team Modi only to make sure that state voters and the party connect more with him than the local chief minister or party leaders. In the current cabinet, except for a couple of them, none others can ensure the victory of the party in their own states. Even states haven't been given reasonably proportional representation, according to the Lok Sabha members in the cabinet, because the Prime Minister placed more emphasis on individuals than on their caste or regional affinity. For example, though Uttar Pradesh sent 62 BJP members to the Lok Sabha in 2019, it has only two cabinet ministers, Rajnath Singh and Mahindra Nath Pandey, who originally belonged to the state. Other cabinet ministers, barring Smriti Irani, were inducted into the government through election as Rajya Sabha members.

Once the prime minister takes a final call on his team, the process of inducting new faces into the organisation will start. The new party structure has to be in tune with the government. Even now, all the ministers have been assigned party work and allocated a specific number of parliamentary constituencies to visit at regular intervals. The BJP led by Nadda is quite top heavy with 12 vice presidents, nine general secretaries, 13 secretaries and a treasurer. Even the state level leadership has shrunk in status and credibility. Anonymity yields guided unanimity. The party hierarchy is dominated by karyakartas (workers), not netas (leaders).

In the past, when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister, he left it to L K Advani to handle the government and the organisation. The idea of the duopoly remains intact, with Modi replacing Vajpayee and Home Minister Amit Shah taking Advani's place. During the Atal-Advani era, the party president and the RSS played an important role in the final outcome. But now, the role of the RSS has been both minimised and marginalised. It's Shah who plays Advani's role but with much more involvement of grassroots workers.

Party insiders feel that both Modi and Shah have to put in place a political structure and an administrative architecture to propel Modi's third term. But an analysis of both the Lok Sabha and over 25 assembly elections held since 2014 reveals that the BJP won most not because of a cohesive party but due to Modi Magic. A maximum Modi can win again with a minimum cabinet.