Uma’s political sanyas ends, back as Cabinet minister

The swearing-in ceremony will be held in the Rashtrapati Bhawan at 6 pm tomorrow. President K R Narayanan is cutting short his visit to Ujjain in order to administer the oaths of office and secrecy to the new ministers.

Having lost out to his rival Babulal Marandi in the race for the post of Jharkhand chief minister, the BJP leadership was keen to placate Munda. A minister in the Morarji Desai government of 1977 and the 13-day government led by Vajpayee in 1996, he, however, will have to rest content with the rank of the minister of state.

A third-term MP from Pauri, Khanduri was in the race for the Uttaranchal chief minister’s post. With an early delimitation ruled out in the soon-to-be-formed state, the Centre had no option but to rehabilitate him in the union council of ministers. He is the second MP from the hill region to be made a minister, the first being Bachi Singh Rawat, who represents Almora in the Lok Sabha.

Bharati had resigned from the union council of ministers earlier this year in order to lead an agitation against the Digvijay Singh government for retrenching governnment employees who had been employed on an ad-hoc basis.

The decision to reinduct Bharati was taken jointly by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Home Minister L K Advani and the RSS. With assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh a year-and-a-half away, the BJP top brass is keen to win back the support of the OBCs, especially after the appointment of Rajnath Singh as the state chief minister and Kalraj Mishra’s elevation as the president of the state BJP unit.

While Singh is a Rajput, Mishra is a Brahmin. Coupled with Kalyan Singh’s ouster from the party last year, there was a growing perception that the BJP had turned against the OBCs. Her comeback, the party leadership feels, would help it dispel this image.

The decision to take back Bharati, who is a Lodh Rajput by caste, the BJP top brass feels, will send just the right message among the OBCs. An indication to this effect was given by none other than Rajnath Singh, who insisted that she attend his swearing-in ceremony at Lucknow last month.

In the last few days, the Bhopal MP has had several rounds of meeting with the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and RSS joint-general secretary Madan Dass, who is in charge of coordination with the BJP. The three leaders were agreed that she had to be rehabilitated in the interests of the party.