New Delhi:
The Congress party's senior leadership is discussing a major cabinet reshuffle, likely to be implemented before the next Parliament session which starts from July 26.
The catalyst for the reshuffle is Sharad Pawar's request to the Prime Minister to reduce his "burden." On Monday, Pawar met the PM to ask that his "burden" be reduced. Pawar insists that he wants to focus more on his party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He was appointed President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) last week. His term will last two years. The cricket World Cup is scheduled for next year. Over the last few months, amid spiraling prices, Pawar, one of the biggest practitioners of power in Indian cricket, has repeatedly been attacked by the Opposition for focusing more on the sport than on farmers and food prices.
(Read: Reduce my burden, Sharad Pawar tells Prime Minister)Pawar says the PM said he will take a week to review Pawar's request.
Pawar is expected to keep his Agriculture portfolio, but lose Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs - all of which he has handled for the last six years.
Those could go to a Congress minister, sources say, since nobody else within Pawar's NCP has the required expertise.
The reshuffle could see A Raja dropped as Telecom Minister. Raja has been dogged by controversy and allegations of corruption, particularly for the allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008. The Opposition claims the policies followed by Raja cost the government close to one lakh crores. The spectrum should have been auctioned, say critics. The matter is being investigated by the CBI.
The new Cabinet may also see a vacancy being filled in the Ministry of External Affairs. Shashi Tharoor, who was the Junior External Affairs Minister, was forced to resign three months ago after allegations that he misused his public office while helping a group of businessmen to win the Kochi franchise for a cricket team in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Tharoor's girlfriend, Sunanda Pushkar, had been awarded sweat equity worth 70 crores by the businessmen. At the time of Tharoor's resignation, she announced that she was surrendering her stake.