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Waiting for the `right time'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 2. For some, it was a case of being on the right side of God, while for others it was ``last-minute formalities''. Whatever the reason, the big two whose portfolios were inter-changed during the Monday Cabinet reshuffle — Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha — did not take charge today. Neither did two other high-profile new entrants, Jana Krishnamurthy and Shatrughan Sinha. Only Sahib Singh Verma took over as the Labour Minister today.

But not taking formal charge did not prevent Mr. Singh from having familiarisation meetings with top officials of the Finance Ministry and even with the Reserve Bank Governor, Bimal Jalan. Mr. Singh is likely to assume formal charge tomorrow. From among the old Council of Ministers, Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, the Shiv Sena leader who was elevated from Minister of State in the Finance Ministry to the portfolio of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises reached his new office today. Shanta Kumar, former Food Minister, also assumed his new charge of the Rural Development Ministry but Sharad Yadav, moved out of Labour to Consumer Affairs, failed to turn up.

Though officially no reasons were put out for the Ministers failing to take up their new assignments, those speaking on behalf of Mr. Singh and Mr. Sinha attributed it to ``some last minute formalities'' connected with their previous positions. In the case of others, waiting for an auspicious time was unofficially given as the reason for the delay.

But for some new Ministers of State there was no need for waiting for any ``auspicious time.'' Among those who took office without much formalities are Vinod Khanna (Tourism and Culture), Anant Geete (Finance), A.K. Moorthy (Railways), U.V. Krishnam Raju (Consumer Affairs), Sumitra Mahajan and Sanjay Paswan (both Communications), Ashok Pradhan (Labour) and Shripad Naik (Civil Aviation).

However, Thirunavukkarasar (Shipping) and Basangouda Patil (Textiles) have decided to wait till Friday before taking charge while Bandaru Dattaraya (Railways) will wait till Thursday. There is no proper auspicious time before that, according to their supporters.

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