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ShareNew Delhi: Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh completed their ministry-making exercise on Thursday by announcing portfolios for the remaining 72 ministers. Six ministers -- Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar, SM Krishna, AK Antony, P Chidambaram and Mamata Banerjee -- were given their portfolios last Saturday.
The surprise elements in Thursday's announcement were the award of the commerce and industry portfolio to Anand Sharma, law to M Veerappa Moily, health to Ghulam Nabi Azad, heavy industry to Vilasrao Deshmukh, and roads and highways to Kamal Nath.
Other ministries were allotted, more or less, along expected lines, with Kapil Sibal getting human resources development and Dayanidhi Maran, textiles. Murli Deora, A Raja, and Sushilkumar Shinde retained their old ministries of petroleum, communications,and power, respectively.
The Congress allies have got more or less what they wanted. The big loser in the ministry announcement was probably Farooq Abdullah, who got the low-profile renewable energy ministry.
Sibal and Moily, both trusted colleagues of Manmohan Singh, have been given the important portfolios of HRD and law to implement his agenda. The prime minister will be looking to Sibal to implement some of the structural reforms that his predecessor, Arjun Singh, kept stonewalling. These include the issue of giving foreign universities a big role in higher education.
Former commerce minister Kamal Nath will head the much sought after road transport and highways ministry in place of the DMK's TR Baalu. Kamal Nath had made no secret of his desire to move out of commerce to a ministry with strong domestic content.
This infrastructure ministry forms a key part of the prime minister's strategy to revive the economy. Under Baalu, road development did not make good progress and the prime minister wants to reverse this.
Singh, however, surprised many with his choice of Sharma as the new minister for commerce. It is a huge elevation for Sharma, who was only one of two ministers of state in the external affairs ministry earlier. Jyotiraditya Scindia is the minister of state for commerce.
The choice of Azad for health and family welfare is also surprising. Though Azad has had several years of experience in government, health and family affairs is certainly not his area of specialisation.
The others who appear to have benefited are Ambika Soni, who has been made thenew minister for information and broadcasting. She seemed to have fallen out of favour after the Ram Setu controversy, but her new ministry will give her an opportunity to make a comeback.
Prithviraj Chavan has not only been promoted and made a minister of state with independent charge, but he has also been given additional charge of the ministry of earth sciences, while retaining the ministry of personnel, public grievances, and parliamentary affairs, among other things.
Similarly, Jairam Ramesh has been promoted by being given independent charge of the ministry of environment & forests. The prime minister has also kept his allies in good humour by giving them most of the ministries they wanted. Praful Patel gets to keep civil aviation, and even the DMK is happy that it gets to keep IT and communications.
