National

All Lather, No Soap

The PM hopes a few minor changes will send a signal on corruption

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All Lather, No Soap
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Last week, the nation was promised a big shake-up, an image makeover by the UPA government. We waited, and the earth did shake in Delhi in the wee hours of January 19, but it was because of an earthquake in Pakistan. Nothing really shook at all in the capital when, later in the day, the Manmohan Singh government undertook its long-awaited cabinet reshuffle. It was an opportunity lost: the same tired characters were moved around, Tweedledum moved about a bit to make space for Tweedledee, none of the scam-tainted ministers were dropped, no young blood was inducted.

Well-wishers of the UPA-II government looked hard for the rationale behind what seemed a pretty pointless exercise. It was pointed out that a “signal” had been sent to the ministers with less than clean images and they had “been put on notice”. This referred to the so-called demotion of several ministers. Kamal Nath, for instance, has been moved from the surface transport ministry to the less glamorous urban development ministry. Murli Deora, considered very close to a business group with vast interests in the petroleum and natural gas sector, was moved from that ministry to corporate affairs. And Praful Patel is out of civil aviation—the post has been given to Vyalar Ravi, who is from Kerala, a state that will go to the polls this May. Another entry from Kerala is K.V. Thomas, who gets food supply & consumer affairs.

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Perhaps the most interesting twist in the reshuffle was the fact that Jaipal Reddy was given petroleum. Although Jaipal is accused of bungling things as the urban development minister during the Commonwealth Games, he has a clean image and is known for his intellectual integrity. The petroleum & natural gas ministry has a mandate intertwined with foreign affairs, gas pipelines and strategic diplomacy in our neighbourhood. Jaipal hasn’t come off too badly in the reshuffle because, at a time when the politics of Andhra Pradesh is so delicately poised because of the Telangana question, a Reddy from that region is not to be trifled with. In fact, the day the reshuffle was announced, a relaxed Jaipal had hosted his annual Andhra lunch in Delhi, always a well-attended affair because of the superb authentic dishes.

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But the fare offered by the government in the reshuffle was very disappointing. There is, in fact, an almost callous attitude to certain sectors. For instance,  Vilasrao Deshmukh was shifted from heavy industries to rural development, the flagship ministry for the NREGA project. As Sharad Pawar retains the agriculture portfolio (though food & consumer affairs has been taken away from him), we now have two politicians from Maharashtra handling key ministries that affect the lives of the aam admi. Neither has shown much commitment to improving the lot of the rural poor. Pawar, of course, is the original player, now known for his passion for cricket as much as politics. Vilasrao was removed as Maharashtra CM last year after some minor scams and an innings during which he took the Bollywood set for a tour of the site of the 26/11 attack. What is quite shocking about putting him in charge of rural development is that when he was Maharashtra CM, the number of farmer suicides in Vidarbha reached a record high. Even at that time, it was Pawar who was agriculture minister.

Greater regard has been shown to the politics of Uttar Pradesh in this cabinet rejig. Salman Khurshid gets a cabinet rank and is minister for water resources with additional charge of minority affairs. He is projected as the party’s Muslim face from Uttar Pradesh. Sriprakash Jaiswal, also from UP, has been upgraded to cabinet rank and retains the vital infrastructure ministry of coal. But the most significant entry is Beni Prasad Verma, as MoS with independent charge of steel. Beni Prasad is an old war horse and has a considerable base among the Kurmis. Initially, after the 2009 mandate,  when the Congress won 21 seats in UP, he was ignored, but now that the honeymoon has ended, and the party did disastrously in the recent panchayat polls, there is realisation that some brick-by-brick construction needs to be done in a state where assembly polls are a little over a year away.

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The prime minister, meanwhile, told journalists that a “more expansive exercise” will take place after the budget session of Parliament and that this was just a “minor exercise”. So minor, in fact, it seems to have made no difference to the principal fact that UPA-II is drifting and is unable to get its act together to counter the avalanche of corruption charges.

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