Competing claims and internal rivalries took the fizz out of the eagerly awaited list of new ministers who will be sworn in on Thursday to complete Manmohan Singh’s second-term team.
Competing claims and internal rivalries took the fizz out of the eagerly awaited list of new ministers who will be sworn in on Thursday to complete prime minister Manmohan Singh’s second-term team.
Attempts to give a fresh look to the government were clearly overtaken by the compulsion to do a balancing act as conflicting demands from all sides overwhelmed Singh and Sonia Gandhi through their marathon consultations of the past two days.
The prime minister’s office (PMO) released the names of 14 ministers of cabinet rank, seven ministers of state with independent charge, and 38 ministers of state for Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony. This brings the strength of the Union council of ministers to 79, just two short of the constitutionally mandated 81, leaving the Congress leadership with little room for political accommodation at short notice, if it becomes necessary.
Among the big names included in Thursday’s list were three former chief ministers, Vilasrao Deshmukh of Maharashtra, Farooq Abdullah of J&K, and Virbhadra Singh of Himachal Pradesh. Excluded from the list were former home minister Shivraj Patil, who quit after 26/11, as well as Arjun Singh and HR Bhardwaj, HRD and law ministers, respectively, in the previous Singh government.
Virtually all those who exerted pressure and lobbied hard have been included. Party leaders are at a loss to understand some of the decisions. For instance, a tiny state like Himachal has two cabinet ministers while Uttar Pradesh, which gave the Congress an unexpected windfall of 21 seats, has none. Karnataka, from where the party won just six Lok Sabha seats, is represented by as many as three cabinet ministers and one minister of state, but Andhra Pradesh, which should have got pride of place because of the 33 MPs it sent to the Lok Sabha, has just one cabinet minister and four ministers of state.
Maharashtra has the highest representation along with Tamil Nadu because of the need to accommodate alliance partners NCP and DMK. There are five cabinet ministers from Maharashtra, two ministers of state with independent charge, and two ministers of state. Tamil Nadu has five in the cabinet and four at minister-of-state level.
A measure of the intensive lobbying that went on in the Congress party can be gauged from some inexplicable inclusions. Former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh will be a cabinet minister although he is not even an MP. Joining him is another former chief minister, Virbhadra Singh of Himachal Pradesh, who was so upset that his party rival Anand Sharma became a minister in the first round that he even got BJP leaders from his state to issue statements in his favour. In fact, nine ex-CMs have found their way into Manmohan Singh’s ministry.
The so-called youth factor is virtually missing at the cabinet-rank level where the average age of ministers is pegged at 66 years with some ministers as old as 77 (SM Krishna) and 76 (Mallikarjun Kharge). At the minister of state level, the average age is down to 45 years, perhaps because of the inclusion of 29-year-old NCP MP Agatha Sangma from Meghalaya. There are, however, 29 first-time ministers.
The paucity of Muslim ministers is also a surprise, considering that the minorities voted in large numbers for the Congress. Ghulam Nabi Azad is the only Muslim face of cabinet rank, while Salman Khursheed is a step lower, although he was part of the Narasimha Rao government way back in the early nineties.
Congress managers attempted to explain away the insipid and uninspiring look of the ministerial team by emphasising the ``clean image’’ of the incoming ministers. They maintained that the PM put his foot down to say that personal integrity should be the foremost criterion.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}