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Yashwant Sinha faces the axe

The fate of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha remains in the balance despite his assertion yesterday in front of Premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee that he has done nothing wrong.

  • By Ajay Jha
  • Published: 00:00 May 15, 2002
  • Gulf News

The fate of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha remains in the balance despite his assertion yesterday in front of Premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee that he has done nothing wrong.

Sinha accused of having received election campaign material from the controversial Flex Industries chairman Ashok Chaturvedi, currently lodged in a prison after having been caught red-handed giving a bribe to a senior excise official, clarified his position for the first time since the controversy broke out on Sunday.

He is slated to make a statement in both Houses of the Parliament today.

Interestingly, Sinha gave the clarification while participating in the Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary party meeting. There are strong suggestions that he may be on his way out from the key ministerial assignment. The current controversy may only have hastened his expected exit.

Sources in the BJP yesterday said that so far no decision has been taken on Sinha's fate, which now may be decided when Vajpayee holds an in-depth discussion with his senior ministerial colleague Lal Krishna Advani after the current budget session of Parliament ends on Friday.

Vajpayee is slated to proceed on a week-long vacation to Manali in Himachal Pradesh on Monday and a massive reshuffle of his council of ministers is expected to take place towards the month-end.

Sources said that cabinet Minister for Disinvestment Arun Shourie is a front runner to replace Sinha as the country's new finance minister, although some senior ministers like the Human Resource Development Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan may also be in the reckoning.

"It is the prerogative of the prime minister to select and shuffle his team. All I can say is that his decision will be acceptable to all," the BJP spokesperson Vijay Kumar Malhotra, said.

Sources indicated that the upcoming reshuffle will not be only confined only to the BJP. With the Vajpayee government finishing half of its five-year term, it is being seen as a mid-term appraisal of the functioning of all ministers. Thus all those found to be either incompetent or irrelevant may be dropped, including those belonging to the allies.

Similarly some young ministers may be relieved from the government to take up key assignment in the party in a bid to reorganise it. Mahajan, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley are among these young ministers who had in the recent past offered to work for the party after a series of electoral debacles in various states.

Besides a reshuffle, Vajpayee may also attempt to prune the size of his council of ministers to make it more cohesive. Some of the other ministers on the firing line include cabinet ministers C.P. Thakur, Satya Narain Jatiya and junior ministers Hukum Dev Narayan Yadav and Munni Lal.

Among those touted to join the government include the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham chief Vaiko and film star-turned politician Shatrughan Sinha.

While Vaiko may get the health ministry, it is not yet clear whether Banerjee will return to her railways ministry that she headed until March last year before resigning or get the coals and mines portfolio lying vacant since the Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan resigned in protest against the Gujarat situation.

However, whether the much-maligned Sinha will survive is engaging the maximum attention. Sinha's anti-middle class budget has made him a villain within the BJP and he was squarely blamed for the party's humiliating string of defeats in the February assembly polls in four states.

The media expose that the Flex Industries chief Chaturvedi had sent a consignment of publicity material to Sinha during the 1999 general elections has put Sinha in a further spot. Although he himself has asserted that he has done nothing wrong and that the party need not be on the defensive on the issue, he does not have many sympathisers.

Prabhat Kumar, Governor of Sinha's home state Jharkhand, had to resign after he initially denied that Chaturvedi paid for some of the parties he hosted in New Delhi while he was the cabinet secretary.

The daily Indian Express on Sunday published a copy of the railway receipt in which Chaturvedi was the sender of the controversial consignment while Sinha's name was written as its receiver.

The principal opposition Congress party on Monday demanded Sinha's removal asserting that hiding the fact that he knew Chaturvedi is no less a crime than receiving election funds from him.

The only saving grace for the beleaguered Sinha is clarification issued by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had arrested Chaturvedi offering Rs1 million to Delhi's excise commissioner Someshwar Misra.

The CBI has said that while Chaturvedi gave details of his links with Prabhat Kumar, never once did he mention Sinha's name during his interrogation.

Sinha, considered close to Advani, called on him soon after he returned from China on Sunday. BJP circles say that much will depend on whether Advani comes to his rescue when Vajpayee discusses the issue of cabinet reshuffle on Saturday-Sunday.

Vajpayee is under increasing pressure from both his party as well as the ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to dispense with Sinha due to his economic policies which they feel has made the BJP unpopular among the masses.

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