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Old men in new jobs

In years past, the Congress had a simple method of dealing with chief ministers who had become something of an embarrassment -- they would be shifted to Delhi and given a job either at the party headquarters or in the Union Council of Ministers.

Much has changed since those days; today, there is a strong possibility that there could be a reshuffle in Delhi because three men will leave the Vajpayee government as they prefer to rule elsewhere.

Which three? Well, I can't be sure, but the needle of probability points to Union Telecommunications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Union Coal and Mines Minister Naveen Patnaik. And there is at least a strong possibility that Union Surface Transport Minister Rajnath Singh could be on the list.

The immediate cause of these shifts will be the assembly polls in Bihar and Orissa. (Elections are also being held for Haryana and Manipur, but they won't have the same impact.) Two members of the Union Cabinet -- Paswan and the Samata Party's Nitish Kumar -- are aspirants for the chief minister's post in Bihar. Though the Bharatiya Janata Party is the largest constituent of the National Democratic Alliance in Delhi, the Janata Dal United and the Samata Party hope to get the top job in Patna. The frontrunner is Paswan, given that he supposedly has a better equation with the BJP.

How about Orissa? Well, there is little confusion here. Both the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal are projecting Naveen Patnaik as the future chief minister. It is, in many ways, an unconventional choice -- the coal and mines minister can't read, write, or speak Oriya. (He is picking up a few words, but you can't expect miracles!) But this doesn't matter to the people who really matter -- the voters of Orissa.

As far as they are concerned, all that matters is that he is the son of the legendary Biju Patnaik. Pedigree, not eloquence, is what matters.

And so let us come to Rajnath Singh. Why should he be moved when the life of the current Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha doesn't end for another 18 months? The simple answer is that the BJP is worried sick about going to the polls under the current chief minister. Ram Prakash Gupta is a good and honourable man, but he is well past his prime; it is unfair, perhaps even a little cruel, to ask him to manage the contradictions of a coalition government. And if a chief minister must be moved, it is better to do so as soon as possible rather than wait for the eve of the election (a lesson the BJP learned in the Delhi assembly poll of 1998).

There have been straws in the wind hinting at Gupta's removal. He is not contesting a by-election to enter the Vidhan Sabha. More recently, Sangha Priya Gautam let slip that there could be a replacement (if it was indeed a slip of the tongue!). But who can replace him as chief minister? Well, the consensus is that Rajnath Singh is best suited to lead the party in the 2001 assembly poll; as a former president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP, he knows all about keeping coalition partners happy.

All this, however, leaves gaps in the Union Council of Ministers. Assuming that my hypothesis is right and the three men leave for Patna, Bhubaneswar, and Lucknow, who will be the new ministers for telecommunications, coal and mines, and surface transport? Add to this the fact that Uma Bharati too has quit her job as Union tourism minister to fight the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. And this gives the prime minister the ideal opportunity for a reshuffle.

By March, the Union Council of Ministers will have been in place for six months, not a very long time perhaps, but enough to give a fair idea of how ministers have been performing. (Or, even more important, not performing!) The prime minister may decide that some are good, others would be happier placed in a different ministry, while yet others are out of their depth altogether. Filling four vacancies is the ideal time to review everybody's performance.

The bottom line is that March is going to see quite a few changes both in Delhi and the states that went to the poll. (Haryana, I think, could be the exception to the rule.) The results of the assembly election could set off a chain reaction in Delhi as well.

T V R Shenoy