NEW DELHI, 24 May 2003 — Union Minister for Agriculture Ajit Singh resigned last night from the government. Senior Rashtriya Lok Dal MLA from Uttar Pradesh Pratap Choudhary said that Singh had resigned to protest against the “problems of farmers not being addressed to by the Vajpayee government”. Singh was also unhappy over the nonfulfillment of his demand for carving out a separate Harit Pradesh from UP, Choudhary said.
There have been consistent reports of differences between Singh and the NDA government and it was widely reported that he was going to be dropped from the Cabinet in today’s reshuffle. Singh, clearly upset, resigned before he could be dropped in the reshuffle.
Significantly, his party RLD with 14 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh government has walked out of the BSP-led coalition. As a result the Mayawati government’s majority is now down to a fragile six.
Meanwhile, a day before he is set to carry out a reshuffle of his council of ministers, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday kept up the suspense over the exercise.
“You will come to know tomorrow,” Vajpayee merely said when asked by reporters whether the reshuffle of his ministry would be a major affair or a minor one.
Officials at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace, said President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam would administer the oath of secrecy to the new ministers at 7.30 p.m. at the Ashoka Hall today.
“It is taking place at that hour, possibly to give more time for last-minute changes,” speculated a Vajpayee aide. Vajpayee’s aim, officials say, is to announce the changes before he leaves on a three-nation Europe tour Tuesday.
This will be the ninth major shake-up of the three-tiered Vajpayee Cabinet since he came to power for the third time in 1999. The Vajpayee government has currently 77 ministers.
According to sources in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), portfolios of senior ministers would be changed and some ministers of state could be dropped in the rejig that is being seen as a mid-course correction with an eye on next year’s general election.
Prime Minister Vajpayee himself hinted along these lines. He said a week ago in the northern hill resort of Manali that some ministers would be “unburdened” of their excess responsibilities.
Those in this category include Sushma Swaraj, the health and parliamentary affairs minister, Arun Jaitley (law, justice, industry and commerce), as well as IT, Communications and Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie.
Vajpayee had added that people could expect new faces in his team.
One unexpected victim of today’s exercise could be Minister of State for Finance Gingee N. Ramachandran, one of whose aides was arrested here Thursday while accepting a bribe of 400,000 rupees from an officer seeking a transfer to Bombay, India’s financial capital.
Ramachandran is from the MDMK party, a BJP ally from Tamil Nadu, and may now be dropped from the government.
The arrested aide was known to be close to the minister and was a political appointee.
Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain’s future is uncertain. The only Muslim face among ministers with a Cabinet rank, he may, however, escape the sword if the past is any indication.
Going by Vajpayee’s hints, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee is set to come back though not in her erstwhile railway portfolio that she had coveted.
Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh’s return to the Cabinet is also being speculated.
Singh quit the Cabinet to take over as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister but has been left out in the cold after the BJP was drubbed in state elections last year.
Another political veteran who may make an entry into the Cabinet is Jammu and Kashmir’s former media savvy chief minister, Farooq Abdullah.
Vajpayee has held several rounds of consultations with his deputy L.K. Advani, Jaswant Singh, BJP chief M. Venkaiah Naidu and Defense Minister George Fernandes to put final touches to the changes.
