Sonia’s trusted team to help Shinde with Cabinet ‘hitlist’

Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is under pressure from most of the MLAs who were ministers in his former cabinet, to bring the...

Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is under pressure from most of the MLAs who were ministers in his former cabinet, to bring them back into his new-look ministry.

Never mind that Assembly polls are just months away. Most of Shinde’s cabinet colleagues would prefer to go into the elections with control over the government machinery.

In keeping with the Constitutional amendment, the strength of the cabinet has to be 15 per cent of the total strength of the Assembly. Accordingly, Shinde will have to drop at least 22 out of the 65 who made up the previous cabinet.

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Unable to decide which MLAs to leave out, Shinde has sought the help of a committee comprising Sonia Gandhi’s trusted aides, Ahmed Patel, Motilal Vora and Ambika Soni, to draft the hit list. A senior minister said since there was no consensus, it was decided that the committee would work out a formula.

The committee would also shield and support Shinde through the tricky process of selecting candidates for the new cabinet. By and large, senior Congress ministers feel that the ones, in whose Assembly segments the party’s performance was dismal during the recent Lok Sabha elections, should be dropped.

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