Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi give final touches to cabinet reshuffle-Friday, Jan 14, 2011

Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi give final touches to cabinet reshuffle

Published: Friday, Jan 14, 2011, 2:40 IST

By Harish Gupta | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

Prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi are giving final touches to the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle and organisational changes.

According to sources in the prime minister’s office, the two leaders held one-to-one discussion without aides last week to remove some of the impediments.

Another round of fine tuning by the two leaders is to take place on Friday and the subject may crop up at the party’s core committee meeting.

Informed sources also told DNA that president Pratibha Patil has been sounded out about it and she would stay put in the capital for most of the next week.

Sonia Gandhi has already signalled that the policy of ‘one-man one-post’ will be implemented.

If the DMK has indicated its desire to induct TR Baalu in the Union cabinet in place of A Raja, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has sent a signal that Praful Patel, currently the minister of state for civil aviation with an independent charge, be upgraded to the rank of a cabinet minister.

The NCP is keen for another infrastructure ministry, such as the power ministry, in lieu of the aviation portfolio. While Baalu met Manmohan Singh and Gandhi last week, Patel also had a meeting with the PM on Thursday before flying to Mumbai to meet Pawar. He had earlier met Gandhi.

The Trinamool Congress may seek induction of a couple of its MPs into the council of ministers. Trinamool has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha and is entitled to an enhanced quota as per the power-sharing formula.

Party chief Mamata Banerjee held telephonic conversation with UPA leaders in Delhi as she does not intend to come to the capital soon.

Regarding changes in Congress, corporate and minority affairs minister Salman Khursheed may be promoted as law minister to replace Veerappa Moily.

It is also learnt that external affairs minister SM Krishna will continue in the same position. Kapil Sibal will be retained in the telecom ministry and science and technology ministry but may have to shed the HRD portfolio.

The prime minister’s main worry is to tone up the functioning of the infrastructure sector and the reshuffle may affect a couple of existing ministers.

The reshuffle also needs to be watched for the “Rahul factor”. While Sachin Pilot and Jitin Prasad are already in the ministry, there are talks to bring Milind Deora in the fold.