In a minor expansion of his Council of Ministers on Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh introduced three new faces, upgraded five Ministers and shuffled the rest of the pack. The top four jobs — Finance, Home, External Affairs and Defence — were left untouched, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham and the Trinamool Congress were left out of the exercise.
Salman Khursheed, Sriprakash Jaiswal and Praful Patel — the last named from the Nationalist Congress Party — were elevated to the Cabinet, while Ministers of State Ajay Maken and K.V. Thomas were given independent charge. The three new faces are Beni Prasad Verma, now MoS with independent charge, Ashwani Kumar and K.C. Venugopal, both inducted as Ministers of State.
The most significant change was Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy being moved to the high profile Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, and Petroleum Minister Murli Deora being shifted to the relatively low key Corporate Affairs Ministry.
If that, along with the DMK not getting a replacement for the former Telecom Minister, A. Raja, was intended, government sources told The Hindu, to send out a message in this season of scams and rising inflation overall, Wednesday's changes looked unlikely to address the credibility deficit, with not one Minister dropped. The best the leadership achieved was to send out a signal by moving some non-performers to Ministries of lesser consequence, and the only clear message went out to election-bound Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, with the representation from these two States increasing substantially.
However, the Prime Minister told journalists, after the swearing-in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, that this was “a minor reshuffle” and that he intended to “do a more expansive exercise” after the budget session of Parliament. By then elections in Kerala, Assam, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will be over, and equations with two allies, the DMK and the TMC, could change, there could be food price stability, as the Prime Minister promised on Wednesday, the scam enquiries could be over.
If Agriculture Minister and NCP leader Sharad Pawar saw his wish fulfilled — or had his wings clipped, depending on one's perspective — with Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs taken away from him and replaced with Food Processing, Kamal Nath, Virbhadra Singh, Murli Deora, B.K. Handique and M.S. Gill were all seen to be ‘downgraded.' On the other hand, the fortunes of Jaipal Reddy, Kapil Sibal, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Vayalar Ravi, Selja, C.P. Joshi and V. Narayanswamy continued to shine.
Keywords: Cabinet reshuffle, Manmohan Singh, UPA
If you mix Indian curry with Italian Pasta, this is what you will get, the end product will be unpalatable. It was believed that the former French President DeGaulle, who was a master in the art of holding and wielding power , had always used this method of not keeping any minister for more than 11 months in his office.He would constantly change them or drop them. Mrs Gandhi ,was also a firm believer of this theory. But for a handful of colleagues like Jagjivanram, CS, RV, she was constantly unsettling her cabinet colleagues. In 1975, when TV became a household reality, in our country, the then I&B Minister, Mr Vasanth Sathe, was cornering all the publicity in the initial euphoria. The Poor minister, when asked about policy changes in the ministry, even told that he would deal with the issues provided he continued to be a I&B minister. True to his prophetic words, Mrs Gandhi removed him at the next opportunity. In the present context, our PM who wields executive powers, has no political clout and Sonia had all the political weaponry in her hand but could do it only through her appointee. Divesting Mr Deora of Petroleum ministry at a crucial time, is a diversionary tactics to buy time. Pushing Mr Praful to Heavy Industries, must have been taken with a heavy Heart, by Praful, for clipping his wings. Pushing a light weight, to the Petroleum ministry, is obviously to find a scape goat for total mismanagement. the Irony is that, those who are really performing are from his coalition partners and not one from Congress. The most curious part of the whole exercise is that almost all the changes were made available by a popular channel , a day before. What has happened to the so called secrecy which is supposed to be surrounding all the cabinet decisions and policy changes? Power brokers continue to make inroads into the govt decision making , that is for sure.
Though reshuffling of his ministry is the prerogative of the PM, this time around Mr. Manmohan Singh has disappointed the nation with his 'minor' reshuffle. This reshuffle is aimed at the forth-coming elections in two states but it would have been more thoughtful and 'fruitful', had he dropped a couple of controversial ministers. By not inducting a new face from Tamil Nadu for the sacked minister Mr. Raja, the PM has sent a message to his opponents. Another feather in his cap is his decision of not considering any MP from Andhra Pradesh for induction. The state has already given to the UPA Government many sleepless nights, thanks to the daunting task of separate Telangana and the defiant Jagan Mohan Reddy.Let us hope that the PM will not let down us by his indecisiveness and short sightedness in his promised reshuffle of his cabinet.
The Prime minister did the right thing by not inducting anyone into the Council of Ministers from Andhra Pradesh where the political situation is in a state of flux.
The cabinet reshuffle is a damp squib. Promising another in May continues the suspense in ministerial quarters and add to stale, if not non- performance. No doubt Mr. Praful Patel deserves to sit on the high table. But concept of political accountability seems to have been waived off in his case by rewarding him. Nacil, his baby of merged state airlines, over three years old is a malnutritioned child; it is in a limbo and no one even uses that name, not even the outgoing minister as he did in his last interview as civil aviation minister!. Thus, for a failed Nacil, Mr. Patel got his promotion, turning political accountability on its head. Be that as it may, he now gets charge also of public enterprises. With his proven track record of a step-motherly treatment to state owned Nacil -or Air India - what would be his attitude to public enterprises. These are in varying degrees of health. Will he continue his anti-public sector policies as was evident with Air India to his new remit - public enterprises? Will he treat the public enterprise just as a branch of the ministry or will he view them as independent companies owned by the public and use his office as a guide and mentor and nurture them and pull those in poor health out of the woods or will he give the same Air India treatment. These are worrying questions that a tax payer has to ask of the UPA government. It looks as if neither Mr. Patel nor the PM has a satisfactory answer for these public apprehensions.
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