Manmohan to reshuffle Cabinet on Wednesday
Would it make any difference with some changes here and there in the UPA II government in India? The Prime Minister should look for strong approach to the ministers of his cabinet instead of changing hands just for the sake of giving chances to his party members and coalition members. Who will get what is a matter of speculation now, but the important thing is who will work and who will not. If the PM does not exercise his power meaningfully, then whoever occupies whatever, the outcome would be the same as that of now.
It is reported that Praful Patel would be promoted to cabinet rank. We the common people know that in his first tenure of five years from 2004 to 2009 as the civil aviation minister the government carrier Air India went into extreme red. Yet, the same man was entrusted with the same ministry in 2009 once again. And now he is going to be elevated for reason the PM knows better. Kapil Sibal, the useless talker, is holding three portfolios simultaneously, why Mr. Prime Minister. He may be left with only two ministries after the reshuffle tomorrow (19 Jan). He will hold the telecom ministry for which the government has brought him in to get over the 2G spectrum corruption charges. This is once again shows the PM’s no say in the reshuffling of his cabinet. He has to agree to the high-command’s decision. The most controversial ally of the congress is DMK wrapped with all sorts of corruption charges on its central ministers. A Raja is no more a raja (King) but DMK is not worried for that. It is busy to fill the gap that Raja created with some other similar persons and for that the names of T R Balu and T K S Elangovan are mentioned in the news report.
The man responsible for the ever growing inflation due to increase of food prices, although he does not agrees with it, Sharad Pawar is going to surrender the Food and Consumer Affairs ministry and will retain Agriculture portfolio.
Congress members who are likely to find place in the cabinet in this reshuffle are Jyotiraditya Scindia and Salman Khurshid. Most likely losers will be C P Joshi and Veerbhadra Singh of Rural Development and Steel ministries respectively for their inefficiency.
Today the high-command Sonia Gandhi met the prime minister at his residence in Race Course Road to discuss the matter.