The recent cabinet reshuffle at the Centre, much-hyped and long-awaited, can be characterized by twin traits of adhocism and eyewash. Corruption, bad governance and impending assembly elections in five states are said to be the key drivers behind the reshuffle.
Although prime minister Manmohan Singh undertook as many as 37 changes in the portfolios of his ministers and inducted three new faces, the prime minister went in for only a limited expansion, and a more comprehensive cleansing exercise is expected to follow after the conclusion of the budget session of parliament in May this year. Description of this reshuffle as a "perform-or-perish" message has ostensibly failed to sway critics, who point out that a number of ineffectual ministers had either retaind their portfolios or been moved laterally, but not dropped.
The Cabinet reshuffle has seemingly turned out to be a disappointing affair because theprior expectations that the Congress top brass would use this opportunity to restore the government's lost credibility by showing the door to non-performers and those involved in controversies have been belied as no minister was dropped. The Congress leadership has apparently opted to play safe by changing the portfolios of some of the ministers though a few seniors have been demoted.
No changes were anticipated in the key portfolios of Finance, Home Affairs and Defence;although there was some speculation that perhaps SM Krishna would be given a less onerous ministerial assignment owing to his ‘underperformance’. According to some experts, any ministerial readjustment which leaves the big four portfolios of Home, Defence, External Affairs and Finance untouched is disillusioning but so underwhelming is Prime Minister’s latest reshuffle that it is hard to understand the motivation or logic behind the entire exercise.
One expert feels that the Congress-led UPA is afflicted with three major weaknesses — the public's perception about Congress leadership’s reluctance to act firmly against corruption; considering cronyism and personal loyalties as bigger virtues than efficiency and Prime Minister’s unwillingness to lead from the front and stare down individual ministers who think they have the individual power to veto collective decisions. The Prime Minister had promised to make the “course correction” in his New Year's message which he failed to carry out while undertaking Cabinet reshuffle. One can understand the compulsions of coalition politics limiting Prime Minister’s options when it comes to the non-Congress ministers, but he could have utilized prevailing public mood to get rid of those Congress ministers who had either failed to make a positive mark or actually denigrated party’s image.
The expectation that the prime minister would wield the scalpel and go in for a major surgery in an attempt to bridge his government’s widening credibility deficit has been belied. No minister was dropped on the charges of either non-performance or ill-health. Ministers whose performances had come under lens in recent months because of either allegations of irregularities in their departments or inefficiency have merely been relocated to less powerful ministries. Only positive aspect is about shifting of ministers who were considered to be too close to corporates with close links to their ministries.Nevertheless, regional and caste compulsions have been a key factor in the composition of the team.
The Congress top brass, while fine-tuning the exercise, appears to have kept in mind caste dynamics of the poll-bound states. There are three OBCs from UP (RPN Singh, as well as Jaiswal and Verma). Vayalar Ravi too is an OBC, from another poll-bound state; Kerala. KV Thomas is a Latin Christian, a numerically-significant community from the state. Kerala gets another representation in the form of Venugopal. Congress's calculation for UP elections is seen to have influenced the upgrading of Salman Khurshid and Sriprakash Jaiswal to Cabinet rank as well as the induction of Beni Prasad Varma, a recent import from the Samajwadi Party, as Minister of State with independent charge of steel. Khurshid becomes the second Muslim member of the Cabinet, after Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Sriprakash Jaiswal and Salman Khursheed too have been elevated by being conferred with full cabinet rank. Both are important Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh, which faces assembly polls next year. Beni Prasad Verma is a Kurmi leader.
Poll in Kerala also played a role. It explains Thomas's elevation, the induction of K C Venugopal as well as the additional charge of civil aviation for Vayalar Ravi. Ravi can play the benefactor for Keralites working overseas, although the ministry may now be run by the PMO.
Viewed in a broad spectrum, this exercise of reshuffle is unlikely to help Congress reap electoral dividends in forthcoming assembly polls because of the inherent organizational weaknesses within the party at state level and lack of effective leadership commanding public credibility.
The reshuffle is no panacea for mitigating the odds facing the prime minister. He is likely to find himself confronting the same political challenge in coming days as he did in the past. The Congress high command as well as the prime minister is faced with the dilemma as to how to restore public confidence and lead a clean and efficient government. The Congress needs to introspect over how it has gone astray. The policy of adhocism adhered to by the Manmohan Singh government, as discernible from the recent Cabinet reshuffle, indicates Congress reluctance to undertake any bold measure designed to shore up its public image. The official bewilderment over revenue losses incurred on account of the arbitrary sale of spectrum and the confrontationist attitude the Central government has adopted over both the CVC and Joint Parliamentary Committee issues suggest the percolation of parliamentary impasse into the Budget session. Apart from setting a bad precedent for Indian democracy, it is also likely to irredeemably spoil the political fortunes of the ruling UPA coalition.
Concurrently, the reshuffle entails remote prospects of vesting more powers in prime minister to become more assertive on issues where Cabinet divisions have prevented crucial decisions from being taken. The lingering issues like indecisiveness over the outcome of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the official attitude towards food security and the employment guarantee scheme suggest ‘a leadership out of tune’ with the economic reality that confronts teeming millions in rural India. The news of Cabinet reshuffle has elicited critical comments from the mainstream media. An editorial in The Hindu finds this reshuffle as a ‘case study in timidity and pointlessness’. The Tribune has described the reshuffle as utterly uninspring. Other dailies have also reacted almost in a similar vein.
