Keshubhai disappoints ministerial aspirants

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, JAN. 4. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, has disappointed many in the BJP legislature party, making only minor readjustments in the portfolios of Ministers.

Speculation was rife in political circles here that Mr. Patel might be inducting a few more aspirants to stem the growing dissidence in the legislature party. It was expected that would take place any time later this month, after kamurta (inauspicious period) ended with Utran on January 14, but the minor reshuffle effected late last night indicates that he has no plan to make any immediate change in the Cabinet at least till after the budget session of the Assembly is over.

The re-allocation of the portfolios was apparently to unburden himself of the additional responsibilities he had accepted after the resignation from the Cabinet of Mr. Ashok Bhatt and the sacking of Mr. Jaynarayan Vyas.

While Mr Patel has retained the all-important Narmada affairs portfolio - the mega project is expected to see investments of over Rs. 10,000 crores in the next three to five years - major irrigation, the other portfolio Mr. Vyas held till he was made to resign a fortnight ago for calling him ``liar'' at an informal Cabinet meeting, has been given to the Minor Irrigation Minister, Mr. Nitin Patel.

The portfolios held by Mr. Ashok Bhatt, who resigned along with the former Union Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Harin Pathak, on the two being chargesheeted in a 15-year-old murder case, have been bifurcated. The Industries Minister and the second in command in the Cabinet, Mr. Suresh Mehta, has been given the additional charge of health; the Minister of State for Fisheries, Mr. Babubhai Bokhariya, Food and Civil Supplies and the Minister of State for Home, Mr. Haren Pandya, additional responsibility of cow protection and pilgrimage centres.

Mr. Patel left for Delhi immediately after re- allocating the portfolios to attend the BJP national executive meeting.

Ever since he returned as Chief Minister after the 1998 Assembly elections and installed a 39-member Cabinet, Mr. Patel had not made any changes despite some half-a dozen vacancies arising - caused by deaths or resignations by his erstwhile colleagues. The drubbing the party received in the September panchayat and municipal corporation elections gave rise to further speculation that he might make his Cabinet, at present heavily weighed in favour of the `Patels'.

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