|
MMS Ministry formation stuck in
many family drawing rooms
Mansukh Kaur
 NEW
DELHI: Surprise winner UPA led by the Congress was still hurtling
towards cobbling together a ministry to run India under Manmohan
Singh as various powers pulled in separate directions to extract
more and more ministries from a reluctant Sonia Gandhi-MMS duo.
Diaspora in western
countries may be surprised at the way the ministry formation takes
place in India. Indian Prime Minister has a complete prerogative in
theory to select his ministers but now the alliance partners have
been allocated quotas and they are demanding ever more slots in the
Cabinet.
In the case of DMK,
which rules in Tamil Nadu and is crucial to the survival of the MMS
government, its chief Karunanidhi is a much marrie dman which
created some problems for Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi was having to
deal with competing claims from the progeny of his wives besides
sundry other kin, and was badgering the PM to lend a hand by
allocating a couple of more ministries.
Sharad Pawar was
not very happy as he thought the DMK was getting way too many
ministries and wanted more for NCP. His colleague in the NCP, PA
Sangma, famous for opposing the Congress dynasty rule a few years
ago, wanted a berth for his daughter.
Omar Abdullah
announced on prime time TV that since his father has not got a call
to become a minister, he has gone to
South Africa
to attend to an urgent engagement: a cricket match. Abdullahs should
not have worried. The cricket tourney got over but the ministry
formation was still hanging fire and Farooq could come back still
and join probably as Tourism minister.
Only six of the 19
who took oath alongwith Manmohan Singh could join so far, the others
waiting for that elusive call.
Poor Lalu is still
not very clear whether he is in or out, and Congress seems to be
enjoying his fate. Mamata Bannerjee will run the Railways and P
Chidambaram will take care of Home. External affairs has gone to S M
Krishna and Pranab Mukerjee will keep an eye on the national till.
Some of the
portfolios seem to have been decided as a family affair and some may
remain undecided for some more time to come. Ministry formation had
proceeded with too many hiccups and the claims about merit being the
sole criteria now lies in pieces. Indications are that a bunch of
ministers will be sworn in on Thursday.
27
May 2009
|
Read Also