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Will Shourie get Finance?

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 13. With the current session of Parliament due to end later this week, and the time approaching for an expected Cabinet reshuffle, once again the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, figures among the probables who may lose his job, and the talk is that Arun Shourie, the Minister for Disinvestment, is among those who are being considered to replace Mr. Sinha.

Lately, Mr. Sinha has emerged as the favourite whipping boy of the Bharatiya Janata Party which has been only too eager to blame his tough-on-middle-class Union Budget for its own poor electoral performance. It was under pressure from the BJP that he rolled back some of the tax proposals, especially those relating to income tax concessions for savings effected by those with an income of less than Rs. 5 lakhs a year. Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress Party leader, who has been patiently waiting to re-enter the Government — after her exit just before the West Bengal Assembly polls last year — is expected to be accommodated this time around. And of course, the Shiv Sena MP, Anand Geete, could get the job of Minister for Heavy Industry recently vacated by Manohar Joshi who has been elected as Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The occasion is expected to be used to move several Ministers around whose performance reports have not been satisfactory.

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, is expected to take a holiday very soon, and the re-shuffle is expected to take place during one of the two or three small `windows' available in between his busy schedule. Between the end of the Parliament session and the start of his vacation the President, K.R. Narayanan, will be away. The conjecture is that Mr. Vajpayee will therefore re-shuffle his Ministers on his return from holiday at the end of this month by when Mr. Narayanan will also be back in the capital.

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