Sonia Gandhi

osh! These cabinet reshuffles can be a big headache. It’s impossible to please everyone, those who have a minister of state portfolio want to be elevated to cabinet rank. And senior ministers want to be the prime minister. The last few weeks saw so much posturing and campaigning from our Congress leaders that Manmohan Singhji said we would have to come out with a novel idea of allotting cabinet berths. And for that he sought the advice of the ever- resourceful Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. He in turn asked the staff at 10 Janpath to bring out a giant-sized carton. I wondered how that would help. “Madam,” he explained, “let each of us first sit inside the box then get out of it and start to think.” I finally got it. Montek was looking for out-of-the-box solutions.

And it was his genius that saved the day. “Soniaji, I suggest we rope in the services of Murugan and Saini, those top-rung consultants.” So it was that we summoned Vel Murugan and Maini Saini from Chennai to help us. And boy did they get things done in quick time! “Soniaji and Manmohanji,” the two of them spoke in unison like chorus singers, “a reshuffle is just a game of musical chairs. So why not play it that way.” And, believe it or not, before Manmohanji could voice any opinion, he and his partner set up 10 chairs in a circle. “Now we require 11 of your staff to participate in the shuffle,” said Murugan. All this was rather baffling even for Rahul baba who came by. “Mom, what’s all this?” he asked. I told him I too didn’t have a clue. Eventually, some clarity came when M&S named each chair after a ministry and the 10 participants (including the gardener in khaki shorts and banian) were given a tag which spelt out which minister they represented. And then Rahul was asked to put on some music. He chose a Pink Floyd song and when it stopped, the maali, who incidentally represented Veerappa Moily, sat on the corporate affairs ministry chair. So one must admit that there’s some truth to Moilyji’s statement that “vested interests” got him out of the law ministry!

Finally, after several rounds, we had a list of 77 mantris. But the last round created a problem. The participant with the PM’s tag lost the race. Would this mean Manmohan Singhji would have to be replaced? And that too by Pranab Mukherjee! What would have been a tricky situation was resolved by Rajeev Shukla. “Tell Soniaji,” he told Rahul over the phone, “I have a solution. I will be with you in 15 minutes.” And when he turned up, he handed over a freshly minted coin. “Soniaji, this is custom-made for the BCCI. And we can toss to see if Manmohanji should continue as the head,” he said. That was a clue. So up went the coin and I called heads. And heads it was! Rajeev Shukla saved the day. “This coin has heads on both sides so you couldn’t have lost,” he confessed later. For saving the prime minister, we all agreed that he should be given a berth in the cabinet....

(As imagined by Ajith Pillai)