Manmohan, Sonia play it safe

By refusing to drop any minister, the duo squandered an opportunity to send out a clear message to Congressmen and other parties that they will not tolerate corruption and non-performance.

However, non-performers, who were among those expected to be dropped, were given important portfolios in the reshuffle. Only two of them  were sort of given light portfolios. While M S Gill was moved from sports and youth affairs to statistics, for the bad name that the government got from the Commonwealth Games,  Murli Deora was shifted from the petroleum ministry to corporate affairs for non-performance.

Till Wednesday morning, Congress insiders were  describing the impending cabinet reshuffle as an opportunity to rebuild and refurbish the image of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which  got a beating owing to a series of scams, and to bring in fresh faces. They also thought that the non-performers would be shown the door. Nothing of these happened.

Half the plot was lost when no one was dropped. The 10-day exercise left a feeling that the Congress was facing talent deficit and would not like to learn lessons.Singh and Gandhi are never known to take hard decisions. The resignation of 2G scam tainted A Raja and Shashi Tharoor, who courted IPL sweat- equity controversy, happened only after the outcry for their sacking reached a crescendo.

Some ministers’ heads were expected to roll, be it for their names figuring in scams, on issues of probity, or for non-performance. They included: Vilasrao Deshmukh, Veerbhadra Singh and C P Joshi. These ministers were not dropped. Instead, they were given better portfolios than they were managing.

Sushilkumar Shinde, who headed the much-neglected and lacklustre power ministry, continues.Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh, who was expected to be promoted to cabinet for his strong actions— be it in the Vedanta case or against the Adarsh housing society—continues in his post. Sriprakash Jaiswal, who had been at loggerheads with Ramesh since long, gets cabinet rank. Orissa’s Srikant Jena, known to be efficient, remains a minister of state (MoS) under DMK’s Alagiri.

No youngster has been inducted, except Kerala’s K C Venugopal,  into the ministry. Uttar Pradesh and Kerala are the biggest beneficiaries of an otherwise timid exercise, thanks to political compulsions.  Kerala goes to the polls  in three-four months. Uttar Pradesh faces elections next year.

Kerala gets a new MoS with independent charge. It also has a new MoS. Vayalar Ravi gets additional charge of the ministry of civil aviation while E Ahamed goes to external affairs from railways.Two of the three who were promoted to cabinet are from UP—Salman Khursheed and Jaiswal.

Beni Prasad Verma, who was cabinet minister in the United Front regime, is minister of state with independent charge. Interestingly, the allies such as the Trinamool Congress and DMK did not get a look in in the exercise. Trinamool’s Mamata Banerjee wanted another Cabinet berth for her party while the DMK expected a replacement for A Raja. With  elections due in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in May, it is likely that the two regional parties will have to wait until after polls to get more ministerial berths.

An interesting facet of the reshuffle is that a wary Congress does not want to fish in the troubled waters of Andhra Pradesh. No one has been inducted afresh from the state that has witnessed violence over the demand for a separate Telangana state.