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Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh Thursday reshuffled his 53-member council of ministers, inducting six faces and elevating two ministers of state to cabinet rank, while dropping five.
The move has been described as an attempt to fortify his eight-party Democratic Front coalition government on the eve of the budget session of the legislative assembly beginning Monday.
In the reshuffle he, according to political observers, has countered the apparent threat of legislators from Vidarbha to resign from the ministry by poaching into the camp of the protagonists for statehood for Vidarbha and accommodating more members of his main alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, to stall any rebellion in the wake of rumours of the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance laying in wait to ambush the government.
Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who calls the shots from the NCP, is also considered to have extended a helping hand by getting rid of his political bete noire within his party and a staunch supporter of a separate Vidarbha movement, food and civil supplies minister Datta Meghe.
The ruling Congess-NCP legislators from Vidarbha had threatened to launch an intensified agitation within and without the legislature to press for passing a resolution recommending to the centre for a separate Vidarbha. Their threat to form a separate group in the assembly had also been looming large over the DF government, giving it nightmares. The dropping of Meghe and Deshmukh has warded off the fear of any dent being caused in the ruling coalition as Ranjit Deshmukh and Meghe were members of the legislative council and have no influence over elected memebers of the legislative assembly.
Ranjit Deshmukh, defying the chief minister, declined to submit his resignation and has flown to Delhi to take up the matter with the Congress high command.
The other ministers whose resignations were secured by the chief minister were Hussein Dalwai (Congress) and state excise minister Vasant Chavan and minister of state for protocol N P Hirani, belonging to the NCP. Dalwai submitted his resignation immediately on receiving a telephonic communication from the chief minister while the three NCP ministers sent in their resignations through Bhujbal.
The resignations of all the four dropped ministers were earlier in the day forwarded to Governor P C Alexander, who has accepted them.
The six faces inducted into the ministry are Syed Ahmed and Satish Chaturvedi -- both of the Congress and four ministers of state Dr Vijay Kumar Gavit, Rajendra Shingane, Rajesh Tope and Hasan Mushriff -- all belong to the NCP.
The new ministers elevated to cabinet rank -- Anil Deshmukh, minister of state for school education and information and publicity and Laxman Dhoble, who was minister of state for social welfare and general administration -- are also from the NCP.
The new entrants and two elevated to cabinet ranks in the ministry were sworn in by the governor in the evening at a simple ceremony held in the Darbar hall of Raj Bhavan.
The chief minister and his deputy denied that the exercise of reshuffle was a political strategy to stem any threat to government. There was no threat to the government, they asserted, adding that it was done in response to popular demand within the ruling constituent parties to give more representation to elected members of the legislative assembly.
The chief minister refuted the allegation that he had targeted strong men from Vidarbha and pointed out that even Chaturvedi, inducted from Vidarbha, was equally a strong champion of a separate Vidarbha demand.
All the five dropped were members of the state legislative council, while the six newly inducted are elected members of the assembly. The two elevated to cabinet rank are also assembly members.
Chaturvedi, Shingane and Tupe were one-day ministers when the DF government came to power. They were dropped from the then 59-member ministry following criticism of its jumbo size from none other than its own constituent party, NCP leader Sharad Pawar when it came to power in October 1999. The NCP members had then refused to be sworn in until the size of the ministry was reduced.
Chaturvedi was a junior minister in the A R Antulay ministry between 1980-82, while Ahmed also has considerable ministerial experience, having served as minister of state in the previous Congress governments in 1986-88 and 1991 in the ministry of S B Chavan and Pawar.
Gavit also served as minister of state for health in the former Sena-BJP alliance government as its independent supporter before joining the NCP on the eve of the last assembly election along with Anil Deshmukh.
The portfolios of the new ministers are expected to be announced on Friday.
UNI
EARLIER REPORTFive MLAs will be sworn-in in Maharashtra at 6 pm
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