Cabinet reshuffle appears to be put on hold - Vora

New Delhi: The much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle has been deferred for the time being.

The exercise to tune up the federal government with induction of some new ministers and changing portfolios of some ministers was expected to take place by the end of this month.

"It appears to me that it has been put on the hold for the time being," said Motilal Vora, treasurer of the ruling Congress party.

While Vora refused to elaborate on the reasons for this, sources in the party said presence of too many aspirants was coming in the way to undertake the exercise.

"It is much better to dangle the carrot rather than have sullen faces in the run up to the crucial general elections," sources said.

Besides presence of a large number of ministerial aspirants in the Congress party, its allies in the United Progressive Alliance also wanted increase in their quota, forcing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to defer the reshuffle.

Vacancies

While some vacancies are lying unfilled for sometime, the idea was to give break to some new faces. One of the certainties was young parliamentarian Jyotiraditya Scindia. The lawmaker from Guna in Madhya Pradesh had to return from London where he was on a personal visit after he was sounded out by the Prime Minister's Office.

Besides, induction of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi was also on the cards.

The exercise was supposed to take place around the same time when some new governors were to be appointed to fill existing vacancies in Maharashtra and Puducherry. Change of guards in Maharashtra, which would go to polls next year, was also in the offing. While federal Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is still in contention to replace state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the ageing federal Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh was in line to become the state governor in place of S.M. Krishna who has returned to his home state Karnataka to help the party win the upcoming assembly elections.