External affairs minister Jaswant Singh is likely to be shifted to finance tomorrow in what is to be the most publicly debated Cabinet reshuffle ever. Government sources said finance minister Yashwant Sinha was likely to be the new external affairs minister.
Health minister C P Thakur resigned tonight from the government, along with rural development minister M Venkaiah Naidu and law minister Arun Jaitley, setting the stage for a massive reshuffle of the Cabinet and the BJP hierarchy.
At 6 pm tomorrow, the NDA council of ministers will see several ministers dropped, several inducted, and the portfolios of several changed.
The first set of meetings to debate the reshuffle was held on June 25 against the backdrop of the Goa meeting, where the BJP leadership had more or less decided that the party structure was in need of young blood because that would deliver votes. However, party president Jana Krishnamurthy's unexpectedly firm refusal to give up his post and join the government proved a hindrance in taking the reshuffle forward.
Instead of giving up command, Krishnamurthy asserted his position by carrying out a host of organisational changes. When Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, home minister L K Advani, information technology and communications minister Pramod Mahajan, Jaswant Singh and defence minister George Fernandes met on June 25, Krishnamurthy
