Yashwant Sinha Is Finance Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was yesterday sworn-in as Prime Minister at the head of a two-tier 42-member BJP-led coalition ministry. The key portfolio of finance was given to Yashwant Sinha after an entire day of wrangling which culminated in Jaswant Singh, Vajpayees choice for the job, not being included in the ministry.
The portfolios were announ-ced late at night after a cabinet meeting. Party president L K Advani was made the home minister. Vajpayee will retain, among others, the key portfolio of external affairs.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said George Fernandes will be the defence minister while Ramakrishna Hegde will get the commerce portfolio.
The communique contained the portfolios of only the 21 cabinet ministers apart from those to be held by the Prime Minister. The portfolios of the ministers of state are to be announced later.
BJP veteran Sikander Bakht has been given industry, Surjit Singh Barnala gets chemicals & fertilisers with additional charge of food. While emminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani will hold the urban development portfolio, Delhi strongman Madan Lal Khurana gets parliamentary affairs with additional charge of tourism.
The human resources development portfolio goes to Dr Murli Manohar Joshi with additional charge of science & technology, information & broadcasting to Sushma Swaraj, petroleum & natural gas to K Ramamurthy, railways to Nitish Kumar, law & justice to R Thambi Durai, and steel & mines to Naveen Patnaik.
Suresh Prabhu has been given environment & forests, Kashiram Rana gets textiles, Buta Singh gets communications, and R Kumaramangalam power.
While R Muthiah gets surface transport, Satyanarayan Jatiya has been given labour. Ananth Kumar was given the civil aviation portfolio.
Jaswant Singh, who was tipped to be finance minister, was dropped from the BJP-led coalitions list of ministers late on Wednesday evening, apparently under pressure from the swadeshi lobby-dominated Sangh parivar and an industrial house that had felt threatened when he previously held the portfolio.
After digging in his heels for a few days, Vajpayee finally succumbed to pressure to drop Singh late on Wednesday night. However, he apparently sought to keep the slot open for a few weeks, so that Singh or former RBI Governor C Rangarajan could take over. Vajpayee, therefore, announced that he would retain the portfolio.
Even so, he continued to be under severe pressure yesterday to give the job to Yashwant Sinha or Murli Manohar Joshi. The announcement of portfolios for the entire government was therefore delayed till late yesterday as Vajpayee sought to stave off pressure to hand over the key portfolio to Sinha.
Even after a meeting of the council of ministers for 40 minutes and an over hour-long cabinet meeting, most ministers did not know what portfolios they were going to get.
The behind-the-scenes crisis hinged largely on the finance portfolios. Rangarajans appointment was tied to the possibility of the Telugu Desam joining the BJP fold sooner than later. Rangarajan, who is currently the governor of Andhra Pradesh, is TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidus nominee for the job. Vajpayee and Advani are said to prefer him if they cannot have Singh rather than Joshi or Sinha.
Singh is now likely to be appointed the deputy chairman of the planning commission and the convenor of the coordination committee of the BJPs allies leaders. At 6:30 am yesterday, he was informed not to come for the ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan. The decision was taken by Vajpayee.