The hush-hush
Cabinet reshuffle has thrown up several surprises. Though there were rumours of a cabinet shuffle in the last few days, few coalition partners or, even, Congress leaders had a clue about it before the Prime Minister's Office, or PMO, put out the press release announcing the changes in portfolios of as many as 46 ministers.
A number of ministers with not so great performance records have been moved around but few have got portfolios less important than their current jobs. None of the ministers seem to have got what they had wanted. The all-important Roads and Highways ministry has been taken away from Kamal Nath who has failed on his own target of building national highways at the rate of 21 kms a day and more than once got into not-too-pleasing public spats with Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Nath would have liked Commerce and Industry but has landed in the Ministry of Urban Development-inarguably an even more important and far more demanding job.
Praful Patel's promotion to cabinet rank is again on merit that can be questioned since the National Congress Party politician has little to show. It seems more to do with balancing of political equations with the key coalition partner. Patel has spent very little time in Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan that houses the civil aviation ministry since the day the United Progressive Alliance government was sworn in May 2009 protesting his minister of state rank. By giving him the heavy industries portfolio, the trio of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her key aide Ahmed Patel have in a way promoted Patel. That said, the heavy industries portfolio is fairly low key compared to civil aviation.
'Mr Clean' Jaipal Reddy has been brought into the petroleum ministry at a time when Reliance Industries has asked the government for a revision in the prices of the gas it sells from the KG Basin citing higher cost of production. It currently sells gas at a price an empowered group of ministers had determined after the Ambani brothers had ended up dragging the government to court in a dispute over the issue among them. The ensuing mud-slinging had some allegations of favourtism being made against the petroleum minister Murli Deora, who has been moved to a ministry with a far lower profile Corporate Affairs.
A clear thumbs-up is for Kapil Sibal who keeps both his happening portfolios of telecom and human resource development.
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