JOIN USCongress hopes DMK will come around
The lead party of the coalition — Congress — is likely to retain most of the key portfolios and its senior leaders have been sounded out for them. They include Pranab Mukherjee (finance), P Chidambaram (home) and A K Antony (defence). Kamal Nath and Salman Khursheed may be given external affairs and commerce or vice versa; Kapil Sibal, human resource development, and H R Bharadwaj, law.
From the Congress side, the other likely ministers would be Sushil Shinde or Kishore Singhdeo (either of them may become Speaker), Sisram Ola, Murli Deora, Ambika Soni, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khursheed, Jaipal Reddy, Meira Kumar, C P Joshi, Mulapally Ramachandran, E Ahamed, Pallam Raju, Chinta Mohan, Nandi Yellaiah, Sai Pratap, Panabaka Lakshmi, Prithviraj Chavan, P K Bansal, Ajay Maken or Sandeep Dikshit, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Selja, Mukul Wasnik, Purandeshwari, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Sachin Pilot among others.
The prime minister was said to be keen to induct Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia as FM but various sections of the party wanted only a politician to head the ministry.
In a dramatic development, DMK refused to be part of the ministry as the Congress declined to be cowed down by its demands. However, Congress sources, labelling the DMK rebellion as only pressure tactics, were confident that the Dravidian party would come around by Friday morning and get into the Cabinet. DMK demanded nine ministerial berths, including four Cabinet posts, but the Congress was prepared to offer seven including two Cabinet posts.
From Karnataka, Mallikarjun Kharge is said to be a certainty along with Oscar Fernandes — the latter, if he decided not to continue in the AICC post. Other names which are doing rounds are of M Veerappa Moily and S M Krishna.
Among other important allies, the Congress almost struck an accord with Trinamool Congress (TC) as its leader Mamata Banerjee will get railway ministry. TC will also get six ministers of state. Some of the likely ministerial faces include Tanveer Ahmed (independent charge of minority affairs) and Dinesh Trivedi (civil aviation) and Mukul Roy (coal and mines). Other ministries that TC may get include home, rural development and agriculture.
Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel from NCP and Shibu Soren from JMM are the other likely candidates for ministries. While Sharad Pawar will retain agriculture, there is no guarantee that high-profile Patel will continue in civil aviation. Pawar’s wings may be clipped, too, as he would be given only agriculture and not food, civil supplies, co-operation and animal husbandry that were attached to agriculture.
The TC, DMK and NCP gave the Congress’ negotiators led by party veteran Pranab Mukherjee and consisting of Ahmed Patel, A K Antony and Ghulam Nabi Azad a tough time on Thursday. The allies were all keen to have a bigger share of the power pie than the ‘big brother’ Congress was ready to spare for them.
DH News Service