Five of the 12 new faces in Ashok Gehlot Ministry in Rajasthan belong to the Sachin Pilot faction and two of them make a return to the Cabinet after being sacked 16 months ago for leading the rebellion against the Chief Minister.
A total of 15 ministers, including three who were promoted as Cabinet Ministers, took oath in Jaipur on Sunday.
Eleven people -- Mamta, Jatav, Jully (all three promoted), Vishvendra Singh, Ramesh Meena, Hemaram Choudhary, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, Ramlal Jat, Mahesh Joshi, Govindram Meghwal and Shakuntla Rawat -- were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers. Four -- Zahida Khan, Brijendra Singh Ola, Rajendra Gudha and Murari Lal Meena -- were sworn in as Ministers of State.
Of this Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena were sacked by Gehlot along with Pilot, then Deputy Chief Minister, last July after they led the rebellion against the Gehlot government and attempted to topple it.
Both of them return as Cabinet Minister while Hemaram Choudhary, another Pilot supporter, also joins them in the Cabinet. Brijendra Ola and Murari Meena, who are also from the Pilot camp, have been sworn in as Ministers of State.
Through the reshuffle, Congress has taken steps to keep regional and caste balance in the exercise with the three ministers -- Mamta Bhupesh, Bhajan Lal Jatav, Tikaram Jully -- who were elevated belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) communities.
Gehlot's new team now consists of four Dalits and three tribals while the number of women has risen to three -- one each Muslim, Dalit and Gujjar.
Among the Ministers of State is Gudha, who is one of the six BSP MLAs who defected to Congress while none of the 12 independent MLAs supporting Congress found a place in the new team. Sources said MLAs who were expecting to be included but were not accommodated would be adjusted in political appointments.'
The plan is to have 15 parliamentary secretaries and seven advisers to the Chief Minister will be appointed. Congress has 108 MLAs in the 200-member assembly besides the support of 12 out of 13 independent MLAs.
While there were no large-scale protests against the exercise, Congress MLA Johari Lal Meena fired a salvo at the elevation of Jully claiming that everyone in Alwar knows that he is corrupt. "I asked the party leadership to remove him but instead, he has been made a minister. I am against it," Meena said while Jully rubbished saying that he respects his party colleague but he should come out with proof, if he has any, to back his allegations.
Another MLA Shafia Zubair said the reshuffle could have been better as those with a bad reputation have been promoted. "Overall, the Cabinet is not sending a good message. Women (MLAs) didn't get 33% reservation in the Cabinet," she said.
Pilot was sacked as Deputy Chief Minister and his supporters ousted from ministership by Gehlot last year after the former shifted his MLAs to Delhi and other places, which was seen as an attempt to topple the Congress government with the help of BJP. However, Gehlot swiftly moved to contain the damages and the political drama ended within a month.
The internal tussle in BJP also helped Gehlot to handle the situation as some MLAs loyal to Pilot started having doubts about the success of their plans to unseat the veteran Congress leader.
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