Opinion Cabinet rejig: Few choices but an opportunity

So,what criteria would they adopt this time? Not merit,for sure. If merit or performance were to be a criterion,barely a dozen or so in the 71-member Council of Ministers would stand out and there is not much of a talent pool either. Some like Sandeep Dikshit and Deepender Hooda get disqualified for being children of Chief Ministers while others like Manish Tewari lose out because of lack of patronage. The PM is,therefore,left with choices like Meenakshi Natarajan,essentially an ostentatious povertarian,or Jyoti Mirdha,an in-house critic of government’s policies.

When it comes to caste representation,performance cannot be the yardstick for Dalit ministers like Sushilkumar Shinde,Mallikarjun Kharge,Mukul Wasnik or Kumari Selja or for an OBC minister like Beni Prasad Verma. So is the case with Muslim ministers like Ghulam Nabi Azad.

When it comes to regional representation,four out of six Congress MPs from Karnataka (in LS) are ministers; seven out of 16 UPA MPs from Kerala (in LS and RS) are ministers and one recently became RS Deputy Chairman. On the other hand,Congress’s lone LS MP from Jharkhand in the Cabinet,Subodh Kant Sahay,has shown a penchant for courting controversies. Chhattisgarh,with one Congress MP in the LS,has no representation in the Cabinet,nor does have Bihar.

Despite UPA leadership’s reservations about the functioning of DMK minister M K Azhagiri or the Dravidian party’s insistence on inducting T R Baalu and Kanimozhi in the Cabinet,the PM has little choice in case of allies.

Therefore,when Singh and Sonia meet,they may have a limited choice — either fill up the vacancies and carry on with available resources or wait further for an opportune time which may or may not come. Within the limited scope though,there is an opportunity to put go-getters in-charge of infrastructure and other key ministries to revive the animal spirit.

dk.singh@expressindia.com