The Mukherjee mission to the Tamil Nadu capital has ensured that the Congress’s key partner, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), will continue in the Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, despite its deep anger over the damage inflicted by the 2G scam.
Clarity on DMK’s status in the UPA and its participation in the government had become necessary for Singh to go ahead with his proposed Ministry revamp since two vacancies exist in that party’s ministerial quota following the exit of A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran over the scam.
After Mukherjee’s meeting with DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi at the latter’s residence in Chennai, it emerged that the DMK would continue in the ministry by nominating replacements for Raja and Maran.
Speculation rife
“There is speculation whether the alliance between the Congress and DMK is continuing or not. My respectful submission is that the alliance is there, it will continue and it will be strengthened,” Mukherjee told newsman following his meeting with Karunanidhi. It also appeared that the DMK leadership may not insist on nominating its parliamentary party leader T R Baalu for a ministerial berth.
The Congress leadership, in particular the prime minister, is widely believed to have strong reservations in inducting Baalu into the ministry in view of his controversial stint in the UPA-1 government as minister for road and surface transport.
Perhaps, aware of this, Baalu said recently that the DMK was not keen on filling the vacancies created by the exit of Raja and Maran.
It was not immediately clear if Mukherjee had raised the Baalu issue in his discussions with Karunanidhi.
Other names
But there were indications following the Mukherjee-Karunanidhi meeting that the DMK might consider the names of its other Members of Parliament T K S Elangovan and A K S Vijayan for ministerial berths.
The revamp exercise, about which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke during his recent media interaction with a select group of editors in the national capital, gathered further momentum during the day. The prime minister met his party boss and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in the national capital.
This meeting assumed significance as there has been speculation that the Congress party may infuse fresh blood into the ministry by bring in new faces from the party.
It is, however, unlikely that there will be any change in the top four portfolios—external affairs (S M Krishna), home (P Chidambaram), finance (Mukherjee) and defence (A K Antony).
However, portfolios of some other senior ministers may change in the proposed reshuffle.
Also, there are some ministers who have more than one portfolio, including Kapil Sibal (human resource development and telecom) and Pawan Kumar Bansal (parliamentary affairs and science and earth sciences).
There are two prominent vacancies—the railway ministry and textile ministry—caused by the resignation of Mamata Banerjee, who has taken over as Chief Minister of West Bengal, and of Dayanidhi Maran over his alleged role in telecom licence allocation.
Besides, corporate affairs minister Murli Deora has expressed his desire to quit as he has come under intense criticism over his role in allocating oil blocks when he was the petroleum minister.
While there was speculation that the exercise may take place as early as Monday, Rashtrapati Bhavan sources said they had no information about it.