NDA reshuffle is trump card for BJP

Or they were dictated by the BJP’s own compulsions like the entry of recently removed party president Jana Krishnamurthy whose pound of flesh for making way for Venkaiah Naidu was the Law Ministry. In fact, three of the new Cabinet Ministers and six of the MoS are from the BJP.

The Mamata cloud continued to hang over Prime Minister’s plans to restore the old composition of his Government. She refused to join the Cabinet today but now she is believed to have changed her demand from asking for the railways portfolio to pushing for Nitish Kumar’s removal from the Railways Ministry.

The Government is unlikely to give into her pressure tactics. Yet, Vajpayee indicated that he was hopeful of being able to persuade her to return to the Government. He said Defence Minister George Fernandes was in touch with her. Deputy Prime Minister K Advani is keeping the Coal and Mines Ministry warm for her as an additional charge to Home portfolio.

From Wednesday, Jaswant will head the Finance Ministry to which the Company Affairs Department has been clubbed in a move to streamline investigations into companies. Sinha will move to the External Affairs Ministry with a new MOS, Digvijay Singh. For the moment, Omar Abdullah will continue as a second MOS in MEA pending his resignation to devote himself to the J-K polls.

Shatrughan Sinha has set a record of sorts by becoming the first Bollywood star to get Cabinet rank. He will hold the health portfolio while Khanna will be an MOS in the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. This brings the number of film stars in the Vajpayee Government to three, the third being MOS Defence Krishnamraju.

As expected Maneka Gandhi has been dropped but a host of others who were in the line of fire, like Satyanarayan Jatiya, Shanta Kumar, Ananthkumar and Jual Oram have been saved, either for political reasons like next year’s elections in Himachal Pradesh (Shanta Kumar) or caste considerations like Jatiya (a Dalit) and Oram (a tribal).

Former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma finally got a Cabinet berth. He overtook the other contender from Delhi, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, largely because of the promise Vajpayee had given him in writing when he was forced to give up the CM’s post. He has been given Labour.