Cabinet expansion may be postponed once again

On Bihar, the BJP stepped up pressure on the Centre to take action by issuing its strongest statement yet on the issue. “The Constitution cannot be allowed to be disowned by people in power,” BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu said today. Reiterating the party’s demand that the Bihar government should be sacked immediately, he said that the strictures of thePatna High Court had vindicated the BJP’s stand that there was no governance worth its name in the state, he said.

The Patna High Court observed yesterday that the prevailing situation amounted to a constitutional breakdown and that “people in Bihar are living like animals while criminals are moving about with liberty”. The BJP had based its demand for the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government on precisely this premise, Naidu said.

He challenged the Congress and Left to clarify their stand on Bihar and to respond to the High Court’s comments. “Seven key witnesses in various scams are missing; 84 officials are missing; funds have been diverted; school children are raped; ministers and MPs attack the police; the police go on strike… this is the situation in Bihar,” Naidu observed.

On Cabinet expansion, BJP President Kushabhau Thakre admitted in Jaipur today that though there was a need for this, it could not be finalised so far “due to different reasons”. Averring that the party had givenVajpayee a free hand to expand his council of ministers “in the manner he wants and whenever he thinks appropriate”, Thakre said that there was an excessive work burden on several Union ministers, including the PM, and it would be desirable if some new ministers were inducted to lighten the burden. Keeping this in view, a need for cabinet expansion had been felt for quite some time, he said.