Mr Rajiv Gandhi has finally reshuffled his council of ministers. In a sense, it is a fairly major one, involving as it does the appointment of three new cabinet minister (Mr Dinesh Singh, Mr Bindeshwari Dubey and Mr Motilal Vora), elevation of one (Mr Ram Niwas Mirdha), shifting of another (Mr Arjun Singh) as chief minister to his home state of Madhya Pradesh, the dropping of still another (Mr G.S. Dhillon), the induction of 11 new ministers of state and deputy ministers and several changes of portfolios at the lower level. Thus if it is assumed that the Prime Minister decided to keep the external affairs portfolio to himself on a long-term basis, only one major portfolio (commerce) or at best two (commerce and communication) remain to be allotted. In all probability Mr Rajiv Gandhi would allot one of these to Mr Shankaranand who is now chairman of the parliamentary committee on the Bofors gun deal; he resigned as cabinet minister in order to be able to take up this assignment. So it is reasonable to say that the Prime Minister has at long last completed his team. Simultaneously he has also filled up gubernatorial posts which had been lying vacant for months, as for example, in Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
These appointments and changes after frequent speculations spread over almost a year suggest that Mr Rajiv Gandhi has regained the self-confidence which developments beginning last March had dented, if not shattered. If there was validity in the earlier view that the Prime Minister was reluctant to fill the wide gaps in his team because he was afraid of the reaction of those who would be disappointed, it follows that he has overcome that apprehension. By itself this is a welcome development. India cannot afford a Prime Minister who cannot choose his ministers for fear of offending some of his partymen. This having been said, it would however be legitimate to ask whether or not the changes amount to much. The answer has by and large to be in the negative.
The only significant addition at the cabinet level is Mr Dinesh Singh and he has been allotted a relatively minor portfolio (water management). In view of his earlier experience as minister for external affairs, commerce and industry, the logic of the new assignment is not clear. Similarly it is difficult to fathom the reasons behind Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to drop Mr Dhillon, the only Sikh minister who represents a Punjab constituency (Mr Buta Singh represents a Rajasthan constituency), and to include Mr Bindeshwari Dubey and Mr Motilal Vora. They have been made to give up as chief ministers of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh precisely because their performance was found to be below par. And if the Prime Minister’s rationale for including them in the cabinet is simply the desire to accommodate chief ministers who are asked to step down, there is no good reason why Mr Harideo Joshi should have been left out. If anything, he has a larger following in the Congress party in his state than Mr Dubey and Mr Vora.
As for the changes in the states, the rationale behind the decision to send Mr Arjun Singh back to Bhopal after three years of hibernation in Chandigarh and New Delhi is obvious enough. The move can at once help contain one of the shrewdest politicians in the country today and improve the party’s prospects at the polls in Madhya Pradesh whenever these are held. But apparently the same considerations have not determined the choice of Mr Bhagwat Jha Azad as chief minister for Bihar. Mr Jha, unlike Mr Arjun Singh, is not a dominating figure in his own state. Judging by the inclusion of anti-Mishra men in the council of ministers it looks as if Mr Rajiv Gandhi has decided to sidetrack and possibly even confront the most important Bihar leader, Dr Jagannath Mishra. If that is indeed the case, it would be reasonable to infer that Mr Azad’s choice has been greatly influenced by that consideration. On the face of it, Mr Rajiv Gandhi must have some reason not to entrust Bihar to Dr Mishra who alone could have possibly restored the party’s fortunes in that benighted state. But it is likely to create serious problems for the Prime Minister and the new chief minister.
Mr Rajiv Gandhi has shifted a number of ministers of state to more innocuous portfolios than they have held. Without naming names, some of these changes are commendable and reflect a sensitivity on the Prune Minister’s part to public opinion. No portfolio is, however, truly innocuous. The Prime Minister has also improved the Muslim and Harijan representation in the council of ministers. But he has failed to give proper representation to several states – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala among them. On this reckoning it cannot be said that these are the last changes before the next poll.