Family ties rule the roost
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry, sworn in by President K R Narayanan today, represents a medley of sons, daughters and daughters-in-law of the country's prominent leaders.
For a family which has been wedded to the Congress ideology, the return of Maneka Gandhi as minister of state is an interesting
development at a time when her sister-in-law Sonia Gandhi is
heading that party.
But she is not the only person whose kith are in the Congress,
since Vasundhara Raje's brother Madhavrao Scindia is a prominent member of the country's oldest political party.
The council of ministers has two sons of sitting chief ministers:
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's son Sukhbir Singh Badal and Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Gegong Apang's son U Apang. Both are ministers of state.
Naveen Patnaik, son of the late Janata Dal leader Biju Patnaik, finds a place as a Cabinet minister. He had broken away from the Janata Dal on the eve of the general election.
Madan Lal Khurana is the only former chief minister included
in the ministry. He had tendered his resignation as Delhi chief minister two years ago when his name appeared in connection with the hawala
scandal.
P Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who had been a minister in the P V Narasimha Rao government, now re-enters the government as Cabinet minister. He is the son of the late Union minister Mohan Kumaramangalam; his grandfather P Subbaroyan was a Cabinet minister in the Jawaharlal Nehru government.
UNI
Elections '98
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