If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decides to reshuffle his Cabinet, the only window of opportunity he has for the next two months is one week beginning after Dussehra, October 17. On October 24, the PM goes on a tour to Japan and Malaysia. Days after he returns, US President Barack Obama comes visiting, followed by the winter session of Parliament.
Several imponderables have to be considered. If it is to be only a minor reshuffle, it may see the exit of Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy and/or Sports Minister M S Gill. Reddy is the only minister in the Union Cabinet from Telangana and this may save him from being axed. However, Gill got a renewed mandate from the Rajya Sabha only so that he could act as a buffer between Commonwealth Organising Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi and the Prime Minister. Gill is widely perceived to have punched below his waist.
The PM also has to decide if he wants to reshuffle only the ministers belonging to the Congress or he wants to include the allies in the Cabinet overhaul as well. In a major reshuffle, it is likely that Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh and Mines Minister B K Handique might be moved. The latter is an old Congress hand from Assam but has been indisposed for some time and the PM might allot the portfolio to some other Congress minister. Handique is also the Union minister for Development of North Eastern Region.
The culture ministry has been vacant for some time.
Senior United Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders maintain that the reshuffle — already dubbed by the Prime Minister as an exercise to give the Cabinet a younger look — will be undertaken after consultations between the PM and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Opinions of senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony and Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel will also be sought.
The reshuffle — the first such exercise of the second UPA — will also be synchronised with the organisational reshuffle in the Congress party. The All India Congress Committee will meet on November 2 in Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium to form its new working committee, which is currently acting as the steering committee.
In December, after the formal re-appointment of Sonia Gandhi as the president, the party is going to get its new team of general secretaries and office bearers. A Cabinet reshuffle, if it finally takes place, will also keep these appointments in kind and share the workload accordingly. Ministers like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Prithviraj Chavan, Veerappa Moily also hold organisational charges and there is a long-pending demand that the party should revert to its one-man-one-post formula.