Big brothers wipe out smiles of Ministers of State

Since both his junior ministers — I D Swami and Vidya Sagar Rao — are far junior in the party and have been chosen by Advani to work under him, they cannot even complain of being given light-weight departments.

Advani has kept Internal security, Police, Constitutional provisions, creation of new states, Vigilance, J&K and North-east. Though Union Territories have been allocated to Rao, he has not been given Delhi and Chandigarh. Both are with Advani.

Rao can wipe his tears to some extent as he has got Foreigner’s Division in the Loknayak Bhawan and the Freedom Fighters’ Cell. But Swami, an ex-IAS officer with considerable experience, has been givendepartment of Official Languages, National Integration & Communal Harmony, ESMA and NSA.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh did the same to his Minister of State Ajit Kumar Panja. Perhaps worse, given the fact that Panja was a senior Cabinet minister in a previous Congress government. Panja has been given Passports and Haj affairs. Both departments don’t have much work for a minister.

Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran felt that before allocating work to his two junior Ministers of State, Omar Farooq and Dr V Raman, “they must get the rooms first in the ministry”.

A lot of haggling is going on in the Railway Ministry where Mamata Banerjee and her Minister of State Digvijay Singh are busy sorting out the ticklish problem of division of work.

Digvijay wants the same powers that his predecessor Ram Naik enjoyed. He feels that if Naik had the power to sanction projects up to Rs 15 crore, the same should be given to him. The Cabinet Minister has powers to sanction projects up to Rs 50crore and beyond that, the files have to go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has been unable to allocate work to V Dananjaya Kumar and Balasaheb Vikhe Patil as Patil has not shown any indication of joining duty so far. Though Suresh Prabhu of the Shiv Sena joined duty today, Manohar Joshi and Patil are still away from their respective offices.

The Shiv Sena has conveyed that it wants the departments of Revenue, Banking, Insurance and Expenditure for Patil. The BJP leadership is, however, unwilling to give up Revenue.

Sinha said yesterday: “I am happy that PM has given two valuable colleagues. We will sit across the table and divide the work mutually.” But that day looks far away as the haggling with the Shiv Sena continues.

Defence Minister George Fernandes kept his juniors — Harin Pathak and Bachi Singh Rawat — without work today. In the Defence Ministry, departments are usually allotted by the Prime Minister to junior ministers. The task wasleft on Fernandes this time. Until late this evening, the work allocation was not done. Perhaps, he was too busy to sort out the power struggle in his own Janata Dal (U).