It looks like the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance has a wicked sense of humour. After keeping mum all day and letting the media bring out its share of articles and programmes sneering at how the much-hyped cabinet reshuffle rumours were a damp squib, the government announced some huge changes in the portfolios. We can only speculate whether or not the announcement also had the tongue-sticking-out-smiley at the end because this post-9pm declaration has put all of media in a tizzy. Spare a thought for newspapers whose news desks are now scrabbling to fix tomorrow’s page one so that it doesn’t look completely clueless about the biggest development in the country. Meanwhile, electronic media had it marginally easier. For once, the term “breaking news” was truly applicable in the ticker that flashed at the bottom of television screens.

NDTV‘s Nidhi Razdan said that Smriti Irani losing the Human Resources Development Ministry was the news of the day. It was also pointed out on Left Right and Centre that there are loose cannons in the government — like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti —  had not had their knuckles rapped. Sankarshan Thakur described the reshuffle announcement was a “media exercise” and a “message of surprise” because of the timing (the announcement was made after 9pm).  “That is the prime message that’s been taken out: do not take Narendra Modi or Amit Shah for granted,” said Thakur.

India Today pointed out that with 78 ministers, the new government was now bigger than the previous administration’s in terms of numbers. “End of minimum govt?” asked the channel and also said the cabinet expansion had Amit Shah’s “imprint”. Equally juicy was Rajdeep Sardesai’s takeaway that the reshuffle showed Narendra Modi “is his own man”. When Rahul Kanwal asked BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra about Smriti Irani being demoted to Textiles from Human Resources Development, Patra replied, “The prerogative of the Prime Minister should not be met with my logic.” Make of that what you will.

Zakka Jacob on CNN-News18 said that the reshuffle, which he described as “massive”, was a performance review of sorts. The big winners, he said, were Prakash Javadekar, Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and Ravi Shankar Prasad. Shereen Bhan of CNBC-TV18 told Jacob that she was struggling to understand why Jayant Sinha had been moved of the position of Minister of State for Finance. “I think the market will be disappointed with the replacement for Jayant Sinha,” said Bhan of Arjun Ram Meghwal who has replaced Sinha. According to Ajoy Bose, Meghwal has a business administration degree from a university in Philippines.

Times Now decided to stick to its scheduled programming. And so, while the new portfolios were listed at the bottom of the screen, their Super Prime Time was about Pakistan’s role in supporting terrorism. It made the claim on the right-hand corner — “Times Now LIVE” — seem a little ridiculous. Incidentally, the number of tweets on the subject? A mere 246 at the time of writing this article. NewsX followed faithfully in Times Now‘s footsteps and ‘debated’ the rise of Islamic terror and whether its making inroads in India. Also, Irrfan Khan’s call for introspection and the trailer for Sonakshi Sinha-starrer Akira. Take that, Messrs Shah and Modi.