India will appoint a new defence minister, a senior party official and another source told Reuters on Thursday, in a move that would allow the current minister, Arun Jaitley, to focus on his main job of steering the economy out of troubled waters. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in May, Jaitley has headed both the defence and finance ministries.
The new defence minister will be Manohar Parrikar, the chief minister of Goa, said Sadanand Tanavade, a general secretary of the state unit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Another source with direct knowledge of the discussions said Modi had offered defence to Parrikar.
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