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Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | Kerala
By Girish Menon
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, AUG. 28. Representatives of the Congress high command, Pranab Mukherjee, and Ahmed Patel, All-India Congress Committee general secretary, would prepare the ground for the Cabinet reshuffle, and restructuring of the party and the United Democratic Front during the course of their discussions, which will begin on Monday. Their first job would be to decide on the dimension of the reshuffle - whether it should be confined to the Congress alone or not. They would also have to consider the next phase of the reconstitution of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). The first phase of the reconstitution failed to satisfy many of the leaders in the State unit of the Congress.
Role of factions
One of the core issues the representatives would have to tackle is with regard to the role of various factions in the new scheme of things, particularly in the backdrop of the defeat the Congress suffered in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Mr. Mukherjee, who would be leading the discussions, would have to locate the position of the Karunakaran faction in the party in the context of the worst electoral drubbing it received. The Congress high command had come down hard on the Karunakaran faction after the polls.
Cabinet reshuffle
Once this aspect is sorted out, the team would have to decide on the dimension of the Cabinet reshuffle. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), at its State committee, had sent rather strong messages about its reluctance to shuffle its ministers or even consider a change in portfolios.
IUML stance
Given the IUML's strong stance, the emissaries would have to confine themselves to a reshuffle of the portfolios of Congress Ministers. This is going to be a tightrope walk, both for the representatives and the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, because of certain inherent problems in the UDF and the Congress. Even while suggesting changes in the Cabinet, Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Patel cannot overlook the prerogative of the Chief Minister in choosing his own team, not to mention the various caste, religious and regional computations. It would be easy for the high command team to work out a formula for expanding the KPCC, but the same would not be the same with regard to the Cabinet reshuffle, which for all purposes remains the exclusive domain of the Chief Minister. Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Patel would hold discussions on Monday and Tuesday and submit their views within the next couple of days. The Chief Minister would be in Delhi on September 5 and the moves to tackle the issues in Kerala would speed up. Mr. Antony appears to be anxious to complete the process at the earliest in order to arrest the drift in the functioning of his Ministry.
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