Three new Ministers to be sworn in on Thursday
Three members of the State Cabinet – Gokula Indira (Tourism), N.R. Sivapathy (School Education) and V.S.Vijay (Health) – were dropped on Wednesday, in yet another reshuffle of Ministers that came after a gap of nearly five months.
T.P. Poonachi, Vaigaichelvan and K. C. Veeramani will be inducted as Ministers at a ceremony on Thursday morning. The portfolio of P. Chendur Pandian has been changed.
K.P. Munusamy, Municipal Administration and Rural Development Minister, has also been given the portfolio of Law, which was hitherto handled by Mr. Sivapathy. Mr. Chendur Pandian will look after Tourism and his portfolio of Khadi and Village Industries has been assigned to Mr. Poonachi.
This is the eighth shuffle after the present government assumed office in May 2011. In October last, C.Ve. Shanmugam, the then Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister, was sacked and the portfolios of four Ministers were changed.
Mr. Poonachi, who is 61 years old, represents Manachanallur in Tiruchi district. In the 2011 Assembly polls, he defeated Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam nominee and former Forests Minister N. Selvaraj by about 20,000 votes.
Dr. Vaigaichelvan, who was a Government Whip in the Assembly in October, will hold the portfolios of School Education, Archaeology, Sports, Youth Welfare, Tamil Language and Culture, which were with Mr Sivapathy till now.
The 44-year-old Vaigaichelvan, who defeated the DMK’s prominent face K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran in 2011, represents Aruppukottai in the Assembly. In the recently-held sitting of the House, he made a scathing attack on DMK president M. Karunanidhi.
Mr. Veeramani, Jolarpet MLA, has been given the subjects of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare, which were held by Dr. Vijay.
Mr Munusamy is the sixth person to hold the portfolio of Law, the previous Ministers being E. Subaya, G. Senthamizhan, M. Paranjothi, Mr Shanmugam and Mr Sivapathy.
Changes in party posts
Ms. Gokula Indira has been made party’s organising secretary.
She was till now secretary of the party’s women wing.
This change was announced by Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa in a release.
Some more changes in the position of party office-bearers were also effected. Mr. Vijay, sacked as Health Minister, also lost his position of Vellore District Secretary.
He was replaced with S.C. Ezhumalai, who was till now district secretary of the MGR wing.
N.R. Sivapathy was removed from the post of Tiruchi Rural District Secretary. R. Manoharan, Tiruchi Urban District Secretary and Tiruchi (East) MLA, will hold the post for the time being.
Vellore Rural East District Secretary R. Vilvanathan has been succeeded by S.R. K. Appu and Kancheepuram West District Secretary V. Somasundaram by P. Ganesan, Uthiramerur MLA.
Second time
Mr Sivapathy, who became Minister twice since May 2011, had a longer spell when he returned to the State Cabinet in January 2012. When he was dropped for the first time in November 2011, he held the portfolio of Animal Husbandry.
A few months later, he was made School Education Minister. In October, he was also given the subject of Law.
If AIADMK wins 40 seats in next lok sabha elections, and if madam becomes prime minister of india, it will be interesting. Our president will have full job on hand administering oath to new ministers quite often may be thrice a month or even more. There may be cases ministers may be dropped immediately after they are sworn in even before getting into their official car. real fun.
Despite this quarterly circus, the common man finds all govt departments perennially corrupt.
The reason for sacking is surely not arising out of a will to weed out corruption. What else is
the reason?
It is a good sign
Well done, You are at it, again. Eight reshuffles of the cabinet
in a span of less than 22 months, lead to just one important
suspicion. Were you right in assigning them ministerial berths in the
first place ? Or, you didn't give them enough time for their roles and
responsibilities to sink in and perform? In any case, most of your
present cabinet ministers are nondescript and don't inspire any
confidence on their abilities. Looks, you may have to keep doing this
at an unerring regularity, which might call your own judgement to
question !
The changes may be for the good of the party. Nevertheless, when the
change is termed as 'sacked', does it mean a non-performance by these
ministers. Should this be so, certainly, this is a signal to the other
ministers to pull up their socks.
The sackings and new appointments seems to be an exercise in keeping all in the party happy at the expense of clean , seamless and effecient adminstration.
Eight reshuffles in less than two years. Something is amiss.
This was long over due. Perhaps, the Madam CM missed the last cycle of weeding by oversight, which in turn should have put all her Ministers in sweat, wringing out their hands for the axe to fall! Those who escaped now can heave a sigh of relief and attend to their business as the next cycle is not around the corner.
Frequent reshuffle of ministers is not good as it will affect
administration and cause negative impact among incumbents due to
uncertainty of their continuation in the post. Also the people must be
able to know the reasons for sacking of the ministers.
It is a common knowledge that AIADMK ministers are hired and fired at will. The citizens should be made aware of why ministers are fired, the qualifications of the new ministers for the job and the steps taken to minimize changes in the cabinet.
Thses drops and inducts of ministers clearly proves that AIADMK is one-person party.
Such unequivocal power and guts are required at the Prime Minister level also but unfortunately for India, actual power lies with another center which was evident even while Bansal presented the Railway Budget profusely thanking UPA chief.
Whats the reason for dropping? Shouldn't the public who voted them know the reason?
Please Email the Editor