Congress faces a mound of unfinished tasks

Just two more working days, August 6 and 7, and the Budget session of the Parliament comes to a close.

Both the Congress and the party-led United Progressive Alliance government have unfulfilled agenda which needs to be sorted out, and incomplete work for which closure would begin soon after the session ends.

In a task which would be jointly undertaken by both the Prime Minister and the Congress president, Governors have to be appointed to some states rather urgently.

This includes the states of Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, where the party would like to send some veteran leaders waiting in the wings for long.

Along with this, there are eight Presidential nominations to the Rajya Sabha which are to be decided in August. The government is of the view that the arising vacancies should be filled at the earliest, as this would bolster the UPA's numbers in the upper house as the ruling coalition is not too comfortably placed -- having a wafer-thin majority.

The budget session has shown that the government could land in trouble any time over a crucial bill, or at the very least with a lot of red faces if it does not get its act together.

Over the nominations there are huge pressures from the allies, artists, journalists, writers, politicians, social workers, scientists, economists, etc., all of whom have been lobbying hard to find a slot in the Rajya Sabha.

The idea behind the nominations has always been to bring the voice of eminent and literary people to the upper house giving them representation in the decision making process.

But over the years, the ruling party of the day brought in people it found convenient in terms of its ideology and practical needs and that situation continues till date.

Reports are that the party and the government are having a tough time putting together the conflicting claims.

With the Parliament over, lobbying has begun by the non-ministers to find a berth in the council of ministers and speculation has begun on whether there would be a reshuffle of the cabinet to address some anomalies which exist.

According to the ceiling which exists on the number of ministers who can be inducted, there are only 2 vacancies while the claimants are manifold.

According to a senior leader, this leaves very little room for manipulation unless some ministers are sent to the states or in the organisation and there is a reshuffle of portfolios to rationalise the existing situation.

But the Congress is not known to change its horses so fast and so quickly since it's been just two months since the formation of the government and the bulk of that time has been spent by ministers in Parliament answering questions and getting to know their ministries.

Sources say there is considerable unease at the performance of some of the ministers when it comes to answering questions, but since many of them are first timers, its not unnatural for them to blunder, considering they have not been able to familiarise themselves with the ministries under their charge for a substantial length of time.

A case in point is the performance of the ministers of external affairs, all of whom are new to the job and with little or no experience.

Union Foreign minister S M Krishna has been out of the political loop for many years and is out of touch with the new international, diplomatic and political realities.

He has Minister of State Shashi Tharoor who has never been a Member of Parliament, let alone a minister, and in fact was not even a voter in India before he came back from the United Nations.

In his enthusiasm he went and sat on the PM's chair in the Rajya Sabha before he was gently guided away by his colleagues in the house!

And then there is MOS Parneet Kaur, who seems to be all at sea and no one has yet been able to fathom why a simple and straight forward lady like her has been landed in the hotbed of diplomatic manoeuvrings.

The uncharitable in the party and the government say that the line up suited the Prime Minister as he wanted to control the Ministry of External Affairs along with the trusted National Security Advisor.

That is all very well, says a senior minister, but neither PM Singh nor Narayanan can answer questions or reply to debates in the two houses on the issue of foreign affairs, a subject which was found to be the flavour of the season in the last one month.

In the party also, new appointments are waiting to be made. A number of ministers are still continuing as All India Congress Committee general secretaries or Congress Working Committee members in-charges of states and this has led to a situation where the party work has suffered, admits an AICC functionary.

Defence Minister A K Antony is in charge of election going state Maharashtra, MOS independent charge and MOS PMO Prithviraj Chavan is in-charge of Haryana. Similarly, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Social Welfare Minister Mukul Wasnik, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narayanswamy, are all over-burdened with party leaders still waiting for the long awaited AICC reshuffle.

With elections round the corner in the states of Maharashtra, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh and possibly Jharkhand in early October, senior leaders say that there is a great deal of unfinished business for the government and the party in the days ahead.