Sports body, cabinet rank for Malhotra

This is the second Cabinet-rank post that the Vajpayee government is creating. Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar has also been given the Cabinet rank as he heads the Disaster Management Board.

Malhotra has been associated with several sports organisations as the first Chief Executive Councillor belonging to the Jana Sangh in 1967 and takes a keen interest in activities related to sports.

After a series of parleys among senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Home Minister L K Advani and party president M Venkaiah Naidu, it was decided to quickly assuage Malhotra’s hurt feelings.

He had been shortlisted by the party high command for a Cabinet berth in the July 1 reshuffle but the PM picked Sahib Singh Verma, partly because he had written a personal letter to him four years ago while asking him to step down from the post of Delhi Chief Minister. Vajpayee had assured him that he would be accommodated in the Union Cabinet later.

When Verma heard that Malhotra had been shortlisted for induction, he raised a hue and cry and, as

on some other occasions, pulled out the PM’s letter. This made the leadership reverse its decision and Verma was inducted into the Cabinet. However, the high command is keen to accommodate Malhotra as the Delhi assembly elections are due next year and the party wants to put up a united face. It would ensure smooth induction of Madanlal Khurana as president of Delhi BJP. The present incumbent, Mange Ram Garg, has already submitted his resignation.

So, Delhi will have two leaders as Cabinet ministers — Jagmohan and Sahib Singh Verma — and one with a Cabinet rank in Malhotra. Vijay Goel, the MP from Chandni Chowk, is an minister of state in the PMO. Meanwhile, the move to appoint two Union ministers — Uma Bharti and Vasundhara Raje Scindia — as the head of the party state units in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, respectively, has been deferred. The final decision was taken on Saturday morning when Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani held meetings with Venkaiah Naidu and others. Advani and Naidu had had separate meetings with Bharti, Minster for Sports, and Vasundhara, Minister of State for Personnel, in the past two days. It has now been decided that revamping of these state units will be done after the Parliament session concludes on August 14. Since the assembly elections in the two states are to be held some time in late 2003, it is felt that there is plenty of time to take a decision.

Though the BJP state units had given up their resistance to the nomination of Uma Bharti and Ms Scindia, the Central leadership decided not to bring about changes as session is beginning from July 15.