Cabinet reshuffle keeping UP, Kerala polls in mind
Uttar Pradesh stole the limelight while several states including poll-bound Tamil Nadu and West Bengal remained out of focus in the just carried out reshuffle of the Union ministry.
As the Congress focus is on 'Mission 2012' in UP where assembly polls are due in 2012, it went the extra mile for elevating Salman Khurshid and Shriprakash Jaiswal to the Cabinet rank.
Besides, it brought in backward leader Beni Prasad Verma as a minister of state with independent charge of the steel ministry and retained three junior ministers Jitin Prasad, Pradip Jain Aditya and R P N Singh.
The number of representatives from Uttar Pradesh in the ministry has increased from five to six. Congress has 22 members in the Lok Sabha from UP.
As against this, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal drew a blank despite the fact that A Raja of DMK had lost his job as the telecom minister ahead of the winter session of Parliament some two months back.
Congress appeared to be in no mood to accommodate anyone from DMK in place of Mr Raja with sources in the ruling party indicating that chief minister M Karunanidhi was also in no position to press the issue against the backdrop of the 2G spectrum scam and its effect on poll-bound Tamil Nadu.
Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress might have had her reasons for not having an additional representative in the Union ministry in spite of the fact that the name of Sudip Bandhoyapdhay was doing the rounds for long.
There has not been a representative of Chhattisgarh, Goa, Manipur and Bihar in the ministry.
Union minister S Jaipal Reddy, who hails from Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, got the key ministry of petroleum and natural gas but minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh also elected from the same state to the Rajya Sabha failed to get elevation despite being the most talked about minister.
Andhra Pradesh, which has 32 Congress members of the Lok Sabha, the largest from any state, had to remain content with one cabinet ministership in Jaipal Reddy.
Poll-bound Kerala, where Congress-led UDF is making a determined bid to come to power, was well looked after in the reshuffle exercise.
A new face K C Venugopal, belonging to the powerful Nair community, was inducted as MoS while Overseas affairs minister Vayalar Ravi got additional charge of the key civil aviation portfolio.
K V Thomas, also from Kerala, has been elevated to MoS (Independent charge) and given the key ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, at a time when the government as well Congress appear keen to rein in foodgrain prices as spiralling prices could hit the party in election-bound states.
tion-bound states.
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