The Hindu : Yashwant, Jaswant swap Ministries

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Tuesday, Jul 02, 2002

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Yashwant, Jaswant swap Ministries

By Harish Khare

The President, K.R. Narayanan, the Vice-President, Krishan Kant, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, with the newly sworn-in Ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. — Photo: V Sudershan

New Delhi July 1. The country has a new Foreign Minister (Yashwant Sinha) and a new Finance Minister (Jaswant Singh) after the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, crafted a "new, improved'' look for his Cabinet. Though the much-awaited and much-deliberated Cabinet expansion produced four new Cabinet-rank Ministers and nine new Ministers of State as well as scripted the departure of six Ministers, it is the swap between the Foreign and Finance Ministers that produced the most excitement in an otherwise uninspired reshuffle exercise that was completed today.

The inexplicable swap between Mr. Singh and Mr. Sinha has come about at a time when the former is seen as having successfully steered the Foreign Office, especially in the recent stand-off with Pakistan. Mr. Sinha had to be moved out of the Finance Ministry not so much because of any essentially flawed stewardship as because of the BJP's need to find a political scapegoat for all the tough decisions that Mr. Sinha as Finance Minister had to take. Mr. Sinha was seen as having alienated the BJP's middle class constituency.

The swap became inevitable because the Prime Minister's first choice for a new Finance Minister, Arun Shourie, was not acceptable to a number of powerful younger Ministers; the second candidate for the post, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, was reportedly vetoed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Kishen Advani.

Jaswant Singh... Over to North Block

Significantly enough, Mr. Singh also gets the Department of Company Affairs. On the other hand, Mr. Sinha, having been so much a part of the Vajpayee arrangement these last four years, simply could not be kept out of the Government. Hence the crucial foreign affairs portfolio. As External Affairs Minister, Mr. Sinha will have a new Minister of State, Digvijay Singh; though, for now, the other junior minister, Omar Abdullah, also stays put.

This evening reshuffle/expansion exercise was planned as a sort of political rejuvenation of the Vajpayee Government and the BJP organisation. However, the political joy of putting in place a new, energised and synergised ministerial team was marred by the Trinamool Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee, who remained adamant that the railways portfolio be restored to her. Refusing to settle for anything else, she opted to stay out — for now — of the Cabinet.

Ms. Banerjee's contrariness apart, neither the political nor the administrative rationale, if any, of the reshuffle exercise was immediately discernible. Nonetheless, after the eighth reshuffle since October 1999, Mr. Vajpayee has notched up the distinction of having one of the largest Council of Ministers since Independence.

The four new Cabinet-rank Ministers are: the former BJP chief, K. Jana Krishnamurthi, who insisted and got the Ministry of Law and Justice; the Shiv Sena nominee, Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil, till now a hardly-noticed Minister of State for Finance, now gets the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises; the former Chief Minister of Delhi, Sahib Singh Verma, who will be the new Labour Minister (in place of Sharad Yadav, who moves to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution ); and, the cinestar of yesteryears and the much-sought after campaign speaker for the BJP, Shatrughan Sinha, who gets the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Yashwant Sinha - External Affairs

The new Ministers of State are: N.T. Shanmugam (independent charge); Anant Gangaram Geete, Basangouda R. Patil, A.K. Moorthy, Sanjay Paswan, Shripad Yesso Naik, S. Thirunavukkarasar, Vinod Khanna, and Nikhil Kumar Choudhary.

The new Cabinet rank Ministers and the Ministers of State were administered oaths of office and secrecy by the President, K.R. Narayanan, at an impressive swearing-in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Vice-President, Krishan Kant, the Prime Minister, the newly-anointed Deputy Prime Minister, and other senior Ministers attended the function.

Mamata Banerjee - misses the train?

Among those who left the Cabinet include the Minister of Rural Development, M. Venkaiah Naidu (who becomes the BJP chief); the Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Arun Jaitley, who has been appointed the BJP spokesman; the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, C.P. Thakur, who has been dropped on charge of non-performance; three Ministers of State, V. Dhananjaya Kumar (Textiles), Maneka Gandhi (Statistics and Programme Implementation) and Munni Lall (Labour), too, have been shown the door. The resignations of all the six have since been forwarded to and accepted by the President.

Surprisingly, besides the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mr. Advani gets additional charge of the Ministry of Coal and Mines. Shanta Kumar moves on to Rural Development, while Mr. Shanmugam gets independent charge of Ministry of Food Processing. The Prime Minister has also made changes in the portfolios of as many as 19 Ministers of State.

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