The missing link

The UPA government may insist it’s not missing Pranab Mukherjee but the vacuum left by his departure for Rashtrapati Bhavan is evident to anyone perusing government websites. The list of Cabinet ministers has been removed not just from the prime minister’s official website but also from the Cabinet Secretariat site. This happened soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s attempts at installing Defence Minister A K Antony as number two in the Cabinet – to fill the spot vacated by Mukherjee – and listing it on the website led to ally Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar’s revolt. Also, the two dozen-odd groups of ministers (GoMs) and empowered groups of ministers (EGoMs) chaired by Mukherjee (earning him the moniker “GoM Mukherjee”) are still headless. Therefore, the lists of GoMs and EGoMs on both websites have been taken off as well. The situation is unlikely to change until the prime minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi can come up with a replacement for Mukherjee that is acceptable to all stakeholders and coalition partners. In hindsight, it was not without reason that Mukherjee was called “Mr Indispensable”.