Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi meet President, revive cabinet rejig talks

Political circles on Tuesday were abuzz with talks of a cabinet reshuffle after Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi met president Pranab Mukherjee.

That Mukherjee was once the Congress’ veteran crisis manager is no secret. So when the prime minister and the Congress president met him, there has to be something brewing. Also, Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary, is scheduled to meet Mukherjee today. 

The question now is when will teh reshuffle happen. While some say Friday or Saturday as the “shradh” period is over, there are a few who say Singh might wait for the Durga pujas to get over.

Since Mukherjee is scheduled to leave for his home state West Bengal on Sunday to celebrate the pujas, if the reshuffle doesn’t happen by Saturday it will happen only after he returns on October 28.

There is another theory doing the rounds: the timing of Singh and Gandhi’s visit is significant given the troubles (Robert Vadra-DLF issue) the Congress is going through. They might have sought the crisis manager’s advice, some say.

Political experts say Gandhi might want to include leaders from poll-bound states, including one from Gujarat’s Saurashtra region, to boost the Congress’ prospects.

Top Congress sources, however, say there are niggling issues such as bringing back Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan to the Centre, sending petroleum minister S Jaipal Reddy to Andhra Pradesh as the chief minister to revive the party’s fortunes that have sagged because of the Telangana ruckus and Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The delay in the reshuffle has pushed back the changes in the AICC. 

The party reshuffle may see Rahul Gandhi occupying the No 2 position in the party to reduce the load on his mother.

Rahul Gandhi is being consulted not only in selecting Sonia’s new team members, mostly those with whom he shares a good rapport, but also in the cabinet rejig.

Now that Trinamool Congress is not part of the government and DMK chief M Karunanidhi has made it clear that he would not fill vacancies from his party quota as a mark of protest against the Congress’ anti-people steps, the new cabinet will largely be Congress-centric, except for NCP’s Tariq Anwar replacing Agatha Sangma.

Names of Menakshi Natarajan from Madhya Pradesh, Jyoti Mirdha from Rajasthan, Manicka Tagore from West Bengal and party spokesman Manish Tewari are in circulation as Rahul Gandhi’s candidates for ministerial berths. The PM may, however, pick up just one from his list and that lucky candidate may be Tewari, Congress sources say.

The PM would like to have a minister handle only one ministry. At present, eight ministers are holding dual charge. The only exception could be finance minister P Chidambaram. He might get additional charge of the ministry of corporate affairs (now being held by Veerappa Moily).

K Rahman Khan, the former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman who has been organising Muslim MPs and leaders to rally on issues concerning the Muslims, is tipped to get the minority affairs portfolio from law minister Salman Khurshid. But E Ahamed, minister of state for external affairs and Saifudin Soz, Jammu&Kashmir PCC president, too are lobbying for it.