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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
President K R Narayanan's widely-reported indisposition and persistent talk in government circles on Friday about an impending cabinet reshuffle on Saturday has left a tantalising trail of mystery whether Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would really effect the changes.
Even an Officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister's Office dropped broad hints to reporters in Parliament on Friday that since Union Minister for Mines Sunderlal Patwa had met Vajpayee and asked to be relieved of office, some changes in the Union cabinet could be in the offing.
However, since the political grapevine is talking about the likelihood of two cabinet ministers being put on the chopping block, their replacements would have to be sworn in by the President.
This in turns means that Vajpayee could have taken Narayanan's concurrence for the oath-taking ceremony in the Ashoka hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Although Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Rural Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu are reportedly not being dropped, the axe could swing towards the Labour Minister Satyanarayan Jatiya and Patwa.
Bharatiya Janata Party sources indicated that Sinha's removal could derail the government's economic liberalisation programnme, a course that could be exploited by the Congress-led opposition.
Jatiya, according to a news report, had been upbraided by the prime minister for trying to regale him with poetry in Hindi.
The report pointed out that Vajpayee had asked Jatiya to stop his 'creative' pursuits and instead concentrate in ushering in labour reforms.
But some sections of the BJP and NDA are reported to be disenchanted by Sinha, whose role in the stock market and the UTI scams has reportedly turned them against his continuation in office.
However, Sinha's critics within the NDA contended that his omissions and commissions on the stock market and UTI scams had already sealed his fate and his finance portfolio was likely to be changed.
Since the prime minister has ensured that there is no threat to his NDA government number wise (in the Lok Sabha), he could well replace half-a-dozen ministers of state whose performance has been sorely disappointing.
There are many aspirants for ministerial berths, but Vajpayee has so far kept all of them guessing.
"Reshuffling the cabinet is the prime minister's prerogative and, therefore, the name-dropping going on for tomorrow's anticipated cabinet reshuffle can at best to described as speculation." said BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudi.
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