NEW DELHI, OCT 19
The Union Cabinet reshuffle is likely on Friday. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may carry it out before leaving on a week-long 3-nation tour of Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam from Sunday. This will be the first reshuffle of the UPA-II ministry since it took the reigns 17 months ago in June last year.
Dr Manmohan Singh had himself talked about the reshuffle possibility before Parliament’s Winter Session (beginning on November 9) while talking to editors here last month. The Congress President’s political secretary Ahmed Patel and MoS in PMO Prithviraj Chavan have already communicated possibility of the reshuffle to the allies but left it for the PM to discuss the names with their leaders.
Sonia Gandhi reportedly asked the Prime Minister last week to complete the reshuffle to enable her to carry out the exercise of forming her new team in the Congress immediately after a one-day AICC session here on November 2. She has to decide the names before the session as general secretaries in the new setup have to be also inducted in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to be constituted in the session.
The Prime Minister’s media adviser is in Hyderabad with him and he could not be reached.
of the reshuffle. Nobody else in the PMO is ready to say if having any clue about it either.
However, if Dr Manmohan Singh delays the reshuffle, he will be able to carry it out only after the Parliament session ends on November 15 as he would have no time to do so after return from abroad because of the AICC session here on November 2, followed by Diwali on November 5 and US President Barack Obama’s visit on November 7 and 8.
An early reshuffle this Friday will also enable the new ministers and those shifted to new ministries to get a grip in a fortnight to be able to handle their job efficiently in the Parliament session that gets going from November 9.
There is a clear vacancy in the Foreign Ministry after Shashi Tharoor’s exit while Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had himself approached the PM to reduce the burden of a host of portfolios of food, civil supplies and consumer affairs that he holds.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is already pestering the Prime Minister to give him one more MOS as he is not able to cope up with the work with just Preneet Kaur as the lone MOS. Chances of Railway MOS E Ahmed being shifted to the External Affairs Ministry are bright as Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee wants to get one of her trusted Trinamool Congress MP in the post. Ahmed was an MOS in the External Affairs Ministry in UPA-I government.
The reshuffle may also see Panchayati Raj portfolio of Rural Development Minister C P Joshi to someone else, while some of the responsibilities of Prithviraj Chavan may be transferred to new young ministers. Besides being the MOS in the PMO, Chavan holds the portfolios of science and technology, ministry of personnel, ministry of parliamentary affairs and ministry of earth science.
There is also pressure on the Prime Minister from within the government as also from outside to better shift greenhorn Jairam Ramesh from the Environment and Forest Ministry as his conduct as an activist has put a score of government and private projects on the hold. There may be major changes at the level of the ministers of state.
Who all are affected in the reshuffle defends on an assessment of performance of the ministers that the Prime Minister got carried out by his office, the PMO sources said while insisting that they still have no word from the PM about the exercise.
