The Hindu : Front Page : Chidambaram gets Finance, Defence for Pranab

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Monday, May 24, 2004

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Front Page

Chidambaram gets Finance, Defence for Pranab

By Harish Khare

Shivraj Patil, Home

NEW DELHI, MAY 23 . Shivraj Patil is the new Union Home Minister and P. Chidambaram the Finance Minister. Pranab Mukherjee will be the Defence Minister and K. Natwar Singh the External Affairs Minister.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, late in the night advised the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on the portfolio allocation for his ministerial colleagues. A Rashtrapati Bhavan press release announced the allocation.

Contrary to earlier expectations that the Prime Minister would keep the Finance portfolio for himself till the next budget, Dr. Singh opted to draft in Mr. Chidambaram, his 1991 economic reforms partner, for the job. The idea was to send out the right signals to the business community at home and abroad on the future course of the economic reforms, now that the Disinvestment Ministry stands dismantled.

Natwar Singh, External Affairs

The delay in the announcement of the portfolios came because the Congress was determined to keep the "big four" — Finance, Home, External Affairs and Defence. This created scope for claims and counter-claims.

Outside these four portfolios, perhaps the most weighty assignment has gone to Sharad Pawar as he becomes the agriculture czar.

Pranab Mukherjee, Defence

Other important portfolios have been thus assigned: Arjun Singh (Human Resource Development); Ghulam Nabi Azad (Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development); Laloo Prasad Yadav (Railways); Hans Raj Bhardwaj (Law and Justice); Kamal Nath (Commerce and Industry); Praful Patel (Civil Aviation); Priyaranjan Dasmunshi (Water Resources); Ram Vilas Paswan (Chemicals and Fertilizers, and Steel); Mani Shankar Aiyar (Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Panchayati Raj); Shankersinh Vaghela (Textiles), and Jaipal Reddy (Information and Broadcasting, and Culture); Dayanidhi Maran (Communication and Information Technology), Anbumani Ramadoss (Health and Family Welfare), P.M. Sayeed (Power).

Prithviraj Chavan will be a Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office.

Arjun Singh, HRD

The Congress leadership, for most of the day remained engaged in mollifying allies as well as restive party MPs. Yesterday, two Congress leaders — Kapil Sibal and Subodh Kant Sahai — were pencilled in to be Ministers of State, but they lobbied hard with the Congress president and got themselves elevated to Ministers of State with independent charge. The main sour point was the promise made to Mr. Paswan that he could have the Health Ministry in addition to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers; the problem arose because the Health Ministry was earlier earmarked for the PMK quota.

P. Chidambaram, Finance

There seems to be considerable resentment among the Congress MPs over, what one of them termed, "over-representation of the old faded brigade." The feelings are particularly high about the inclusion of "non-MPs" Shivraj Patil, P.M. Sayeed (both lost the Lok Sabha election) and Oscar Fernandes (whose term in the Rajya Sabha ended in April last). Both Mr. Patil and Mr. Sayeed were constrained to join issue with their detractors.

Laloo Prasad Yadav, Railways

Amid all these claims and counter-claims, the new Prime Minister got on with the job. He presided over the first Cabinet meeting, which was called to decide the dates for the new Lok Sabha's first session.

Sharad Pawar, Food & Agriculture

The first session of the 14th Lok Sabha will be held from June 2 to 10. The Rajya Sabha will meet from June 4 and the President will address a joint session of Parliament on June 7.

Ram Vilas Paswan: Steel, Chemicals & Fertilizers

The oath-taking and affirmation of the new members of the Lok Sabha will take place on June 2 and 3 and the Speaker's election will be held on June 5. The motion of thanks, discussion and voting on the President's address will be held on June 8, 9 and 10.

At the Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister got a briefing from the Defence and Home Secretaries about the security situation in the country, especially in the border areas; he also had a meeting with the Finance Secretary and the Expenditure Secretary and wanted to know about the state of play in the capital market.

Dayanidhi Maran, Communications & IT

One of Dr. Manmohan Singh's first crucial decisions was to appoint T.K.A. Nair as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. A Punjab cadre officer of the 1963 batch, the 64-year-old officer has functioned as Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office during the I.K. Gujral regime.

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