NEW DELHI, March 19: Atal Behari Vajpayee was sworn in Prime Minister this morning along with a 43-member, two-tier ministry. But only a few hours into power, the Prime Minister was forced to act against his will after a prolonged intra-party wrangling over the Finance portfolio.Seething over his wish to appoint Jaswant Singh as Finance Minister being overruled by the RSS, Vajpayee told the media in the morning that he would keep Finance with himself. But he was forced to allot the key ministry to Yashwant Sinha late at night. Party president L K Advani has been allotted the Home ministry.
Last-minute bargaining over ministries led to a hitch that delayed the announcement of portfolios (earlier scheduled for the afternoon) until close to midnight. Vajpayee is to keep foreign affairs for himself. Only the 21 Cabinet portfolios were announced; the portfolios of the 21 Ministers of State are to be released tomorrow -- a pointer to the difficulties being faced in the allocation of ministries.
The listitself was reportedly sent to Rashtrapati Bhavan after 10 p.m. for the President's signature, after which a communique was issued. This is the first embarrassment for the fledgling government and does not augur well for the future.
Sources said that the problem was largely within the BJP, rather than its allies. It was speculated that among those who were insisting on ``better'' ministries was Murli Manohar Joshi, who reportedly thought that his stature deserved better ministries than HRD and Science and Technology.
AIADMK chief Jayalalitha has clearly got what she wanted. M Thambi Durai is to be Cabinet Minister for Law and Justice, while R Kumar is expected to be Minister of State for Finance. Both are perceived to be important for her alleged hidden agenda -- soft-pedalling on the corruption cases against her and investigations into the Indian Bank scam in which rivals TMC are allegedly involved.
In the interests of harmonious relations with its allies, the BJP put aside several of its principles --a compact ministry, only Cabinet-level ministers in the first round, and taking post-poll partners into the ministry after clearing the confidence test. As a result, Vajpayee will now have less room for manoeuvre at the time of ministry expansion which has been promised after he wins the test of majority.
While the 21 Cabinet berths have been equally divided between the BJP and its allies (11 for BJP and 10 for allies), the division of Ministers of State is heavily tilted in the BJP's favour (14 for the BJP and seven for allies).
Jayalalitha, who controls 27 MPs from Tamil Nadu (the largest bloc after the BJP), has scored points over other allies - she has swung three Cabinet berths and three MOSs for her alliance: M Thambi Durai R Muthaiah (both AIADMK) and V K Ramamurthy (TRC) got important Cabinet berths, while R K Kumar, B Janardhana (both AIADMK) and Dalit Ezhalmalai (PMK) were made Ministers of State.
Ramadoss, leader of the three-MP PMK, who was expected to be a Cabinet minister. Ramadoss did notfigure at all in the ministry, leading to speculation that he refused after he was offered a ministry he did not want.
All States have been given representation, except for Kerala and West Bengal. Vajpayee is said to be waiting for Mamata Banerjee to join the government -- likely in June -- before appointing ministers from Bengal.
As expected, political heavyweights and leaders of allied parties have been given Cabinet berths : Advani, Sikander Bakht, M M Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Madan Lal Khurana and Yashwant Sinha from the BJP, S S Barnala (Akali Dal), George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar (Samata Party), Ramakrishna Hegde (Lok Shakti), Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal) and Suresh Prabhu (Shiv Sena).Fernandes, who had refused to accept ministership, ``caved in'' last night. This, said Samata Party leaders, was because his party MPs insisted that he should. But having done that, Fernandes is said to have insisted on a key ministry and upset the delicate balance achieved earlier.
Surprise inclusions in theCabinet were the BJP's Anantha Kumar, Ram Jethmalani, Satyanarayan Jatiya and P R Kumaramangalam, who were expected to be made Ministers of State. Among the Independents who have decided to support the BJP, Buta Singh has been made a Cabinet minister, while Maneka Gandhi gets MOS status.
Sons also rise with the BJP, though the party is against nepotism, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's son, Sukhbir Singh, and Gegong Apang's son, Umak, have been made ministers. Giant-killers Som Pal (who vanquished Ajit Singh) and Ramesh Bains and Babulal Marandi (who defeated V C Shukla and Shibu Soren respectively) have been rewarded with ministerships. But the appointment of senior BJP MP Ram Naik as only a Minister of State caused some surprise. Naik himself was philosophical. ``Adjustments have to be made in coalition governments,'' he said later.
There is only one woman in the Cabinet (Sushma Swaraj) and three more (Uma Bharti, Vasundhara Raje and Maneka Gandhi) as Ministers of State in the 43-memberministry. Upper caste members dominate the ministry. In the Cabinet, (Nitish Kumar and Kashiram Ram (both OBCs), Buta Singh and Jatiya (both SCs) are the only exceptions. Among the Ministers of State there are six OBCs, STs and SCs -- Bandaru Dattatreya, Uma Bharti, Dalit Ezhamalai, Santosh Gangwar, Babulal Marandi and Satya Pal Singh Yadav. There are two Muslims -- Sikander Bakht and Mukhtiar Naqvi, both of the BJP.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
