A major reshuffle in the United Progressive Alliance government and the Congress is expected after the budget session of Parliament ends on May 24, which will coincide with UPA-II's third anniversary on May 22, party and government sources said. Little wonder senior Ministers and party functionaries are positioning themselves for the changes the leadership hopes to put in place in readiness not just for the next general elections scheduled for 2014 but also for about a dozen State elections in the next two years.
On Tuesday, even as the Congress itself initiated the suspension of eight of its own Telangana MPs for four days for disrupting Parliament as a signal to the Opposition that it meant business, speculation was rife on four Cabinet Ministers — Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khurshid, Jairam Ramesh and Vayalar Ravi — having offered to quit their government jobs to work for the party organisation.
As the day proceeded, while Mr. Azad, Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Ravi clarified that they had not written any letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mr Khurshid told journalists he had written to her shortly after the results of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections came in. “Please separate fact from fiction,” he said, adding, “Communication between leaders and second-rung leaders is a constant affair. The party comes first. The party makes a government. Ultimately we …must remain rooted … If the party asks me to do something then I am not going to say no.”
While Mr. Khurshid did not amplify on the letter's contents, party sources said he had expressed regret over the party's poor performance in U.P. and indicated he would be happy to work anywhere the leadership decided. However, both Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Khurshid — separately — met Ms. Gandhi on Tuesday evening, it is learnt, even as Mr. Azad — also general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh — remained busy talking to the suspended Telangana MPs, ahead of several by-elections in that State due in June. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, A.P. brought 33 seats into the party kitty — now the Telangana issue and the leadership crisis spell disaster for the party. Simultaneously, reports suggest that Jaganmohan Reddy, son of the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, is the rising star and his new party is likely to cut badly into the Congress pie.
Giving credence to the possibility of the four Ministers being drafted for party work is that each of them has played a significant role in an organisational capacity in the past: for instance, of late, Mr. Ravi has been used by Ms. Gandhi in the complicated politics of Andhra Pradesh; Mr. Azad, regarded as a very sound organisational man, continues to double as Union Health Minister and party general secretary; and Mr. Khurshid and Mr. Ramesh have always been a part of the Congress think tank.
With just two years left for the general elections, the Congress, enfeebled by a spate of scams and scandals, high prices and complaints of policy paralysis, needs to focus on making the party organisation into a fighting machine. Initial reports say the committee set up under Defence Minister A.K. Antony to analyse why the party performed poorly in the recent Assembly polls has pinpointed the weakness of the party organisation as the prime cause.
