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Cabinet expansion proves a headache for Vajpayee

George Iype in New Delhi

The threat to withdraw support from the Union government has become an important bargaining chip for the Bharatiya Janata Party's allies as they try to extract promises of ministerial berths from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

While Vajpayee is trying to postpone the much-awaited Cabinet expansion till after the assembly elections in four states in November, sources said key allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Samata Party and the Trinamool Congress are stepping up their demands for more ministerial posts.

BJP politicians say the Akali Dal's threat to pull out of the coalition if Udham Singh Nagar is included in the proposed Uttaranchal state is only a ploy to ensure that it gets its pound of flesh.

The Dal has three prominent factions headed by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Surjit Singh Barnala, and Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra.

The party's stiff stand on Udham Singh Nagar is said to be a ploy by the Tohra group to force the prime minister to include one of its representatives in his Cabinet.

The Badal and Barnala factions are already represented in government. While Barnala himself is in the Cabinet, Chief Minister Badal's son Sukhbir Singh is minister of state for industry. So Tohra is believed to be keen to have his confidant Prem Singh Chandumajra also in the government.

"The Tohra group is most vociferous in opposing Uttaranchal. The prime minister will placate them by giving Tohra's representative a possible Cabinet berth," a BJP source told Rediff On The NeT.

But the BJP leadership is said to have argued that with only eight MPs in the Lok Sabha, the SAD should not be given two Cabinet posts as it would compel other coalition partners to make similar demands.

While Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Kishinchand Advani will meet Badal, Barnala, and Tohra in New Delhi tomorrow in an attempt to settle the row over Udham Singh Nagar, the BJP leadership fears trouble with other coalition partners on ministerial berths.

AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha is keen that the prime minister should immediately fill in the vacancies created by the resignations of R K Kumar and S R Muthaiah. The Samata Party with 13 MPs is also demanding two more ministerial posts.

Though the Samata Party already has two Cabinet berths -- Defence Minister George Fernandes and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar -- the party is on the verge of a split as former Bihar chief minister Abdul Ghafoor is demanding his inclusion in the Cabinet.

Ghafoor's supporters say he was not inducted into the Cabinet as part of a deal between Vajpayee and Fernandes according to which the Rabri Devi government in Bihar was to be sacked and Nitish Kumar made chief minister of an alternative coalition government.

But since the BJP's plan to sack Rabri Devi came unstuck, thanks to President K R Narayanan, Nitish Kumar remains in the Cabinet and Ghafoor outside. But Ghafoor is unwilling to wait any longer for the Vajpayee-Fernandes plan to bear fruit.

Adding to Vajpayee's worries is Nitish Kumar's demand that his associate Digvijay Singh also be made a minister.

Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee has also agreed to have her party join the Vajpayee government. But her senior colleague and former Union minister Ajit Panja is insisting that he be made a Cabinet minister.

In view of these pressures, Vajpayee does not want to expand the Cabinet before the assembly elections in November. But pressure from within the BJP is also mounting as senior politicians like Pramod Mahajan and Rajnath Singh are unwilling to wait much longer for their share of the power pie.

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