Opinion Cabinet carpentry

This time,Manmohan Singh and Gandhi met thrice without any aides.

Coomi Kapoor

July 17, 2011 12:08 AM IST First published on: Jul 17, 2011 at 12:08 AM IST

Cabinet carpentry

When the Cabinet reshuffle took place six months ago,Sonia Gandhis political secretary Ahmed Patel acted as the go between and,in the bargain,made some last minute changes of his own. This time,Manmohan Singh and Gandhi met thrice without any aides. The appointment of Salman Khursheed as law minister and the inclusion of Kishore Chandra Deo in the Cabinet seems part of the damage control exercise from the last reshuffle,when Khursheed was downgraded and Deo kept out. The PM succeeded in getting Jairam Ramesh out of the environment ministry,but his old favourite Montek Singh Ahluwalia could not get a Cabinet berth. Nor could Ashwani Kumar be brought into the PMO as Singh would have desired. Much has been made of the continued infusion of young blood as ministers of state. But Rahuls Young Turks are silently seething since the senior ministers give them very little work and files are rarely sent to them. If they are lucky,they are included in briefings with officials before the start of the Parliament session.

Fortunes favourite

Jayanthi Natarajans appointment as environment minister has led to considerable heartburn. Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu have written to Sonia Gandhi pointing out that apart from P Chidambaram,all nine Congress MPs from the state have been ignored in favour of someone who has always been a member of the Rajya Sabha. In the AICCs media cell,the ministerial hopefuls included Manish Tewari,Abhishek Manu Singhvi and even media-in-charge Janardhan Dwivedi. But they were all pipped to the post by Natarajan. Congress women MPs feel aggrieved that Natarajan gets all the plum positions,including membership of the JPC. Natarajans strength is that she is a Gandhi favourite. Even a case registered against her in a Tamil Nadu court has not hampered her.

Belated tweeter

Milind Deora started to tweet just three days before he was sworn in as a minister of state. His tweets so far have been innocuous enough. Latest tweet: Just been sworn in as MoS. Very humbled by the responsibility. It remains to be seen whether the junior Deora will end up a Twitter addict like Shashi Tharoor,whose perennial twittering played a part in his downfall. Or will Deora discreetly wind up his Twitter site shortly.?

Jostling for positions

In the group photograph of the new ministers with the Prime Minister,Jayanthi Natarajan,as the sole woman minister,took centre space next to Manmohan Singh. Beni Prasad Verma rushed to emulate her,but he was quickly brushed aside by a presidential aide,since he had committed the faux pas of walking past President Pratibha Patil. Verma had to be content with a second row position in the group photo.

Making a point

It is no coincidence that Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna calls a press conference immediately after a Cabinet reshuffle. It is Krishnas way of emphasising to journalists on the MEA beat that he is still very much around in the ministry,despite media rumours of his imminent exit. However,this time Krishnas planned breakfast meet with the media at a five star hotel was cancelled at the last minute because of Pranab

Mukherjees announcement a day earlier of the need to practice austerity.

Watch for fireworks

Chandrababu Naidus Telugu Desam Party has a spacious ground floor office which was allotted to the TDP when G M C Balayogi was Lok Sabha Speaker and the party had 29 MPs. But after the number of TDP MPs declined dramatically,the party was asked to vacate the premises for the DMK,which had 18 MPs,since party offices are given on the basis of the number of MPs in the party. The DMK has regularly reminded the Parliament secretariat that it is still to get possession of the office,but the TDP refuses to vacate. The DMK is at present lodged in a cramped quarters on the third floor. The DMK has finally lost patience and decided that when Parliament re-convenes in August,it is going to take law into its own hands and occupy the ground floor office forcibly.

Payback time

While in Delhi three DMK heavyweights have been caught in the web of telecom scams,back in Tamil Nadu,Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is making things difficult for lesser known DMK leaders. Jayalalithaa has set up a special CID cell to investigate land grabs by DMK MLAs and MPs during the last regime. Some arrests have been made and more are expected. Clearly,the Tamil Nadu czarina has not learnt any lessons from the past that wreaking vengeance on rivals does not pay dividends in the long run.