Portfolio pragmatism

The allocation of portfolios to Cabinet ministers has been a predictably tortuous task for a Prime Minister with an impossible tight rope to...

The allocation of portfolios to Cabinet ministers has been a predictably tortuous task for a Prime Minister with an impossible tight rope to walk. Yet as much as it showed up the pulls and pressures he is subject to, and especially in the drama that surrounded the coveted appointment in the Ministry of Finance, the end result is not unpromising.

The most obvious imperative for Atal Behari Vajpayee was to strike an acceptable balance between important portfolios for the BJP8217;s own ministers and those of its allies. This seems on balance to have been achieved, defence being the only core ministry to go to a non-BJP man. The most dramatic developments, and the most embarrassing ones for the BJP and for Vajpayee, related to the Finance appointment, with first a last-minute dropping of Jaswant Singh8217;s name, then the Prime Minister saying he would keep the portfolio, and finally the post going by default to Yashwant Sinha who is not seen by the BJP leadership as a true party insider.

However, the silver liningis easy to detect. The business of managing its allies apart, the most important long-term aspect of this cabinet-formation exercise has been an attempt to divorce ideology from functional governance. This is as it should be in a coalition, and particularly in one headed by a party with an ideology so sharply at odds with the rest of the political establishment. The BJP has wisely chosen not to stir the pot at a time when India is already afflicted by crippling uncertainties. It has kept personalities closely identified with controversial ideologies away from portfolios where they could have given their instincts full play and created more friction than is inevitable. The party could easily have justified to itself, Jaswant Singh absent, the appointment of Murli Manohar Joshi to a job that he was clearly keen on having. It might have suited the BJP electorally, after all, to push a hard swadeshi line through Joshi in North Block, and use that to make a populist pitch with voters when the next election cameround. That it chose not to do so is an early and healthy sign of responsibility. Yashwant Sinha already has said that foreign investors have nothing to fear from a BJP government. The markets are not amused, though, and here lies a lesson for the BJP: it does its cause no good to propound hardline ideas in an election campaign when in power their implementation is not possible.

Vajpayee has been similarly wise to keep George Fernandes away from the industry ministry although it was reportedly Fernandes who declined the commerce minister8217;s job. His antics in an economic ministry could have created severe difficulties for the government, for the BJP8217;s own economic instincts remain ambivalent.

In defence, on the other hand, there is no such ambivalence, and his hardline instincts sit well with the BJP8217;s own and, more importantly, with the National Agenda for Governance. Even so, there are disturbing inclusions and allocations: Buta Singh in the notoriously lucrative communications ministry, Jayalalitha8217;sown man in the law ministry, so crucial to her. However, it is hard to see in the present circumstances how the BJP can hope to offer some stability without these bows to its allies. Its really tough job will be to ensure that no blatant improprieties are committed by those whom it has been compelled to oblige.