by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
special story
When Ministers go Sulking
Taking Charge Tell Strange tails
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, June 4
After being sworn in on May 30 and portfolios allotted on May 31 noon, the story didn't end there. The Ministers of the Modi government handing and taking over charge of their respective ministries tell strange stories and these were all visible to political watchers.
All eyes were set on North Block where most powerful Minister Amit Shah had gone to take to take charge of the Home Ministry on June 2. But his predecessor Rajnath Singh was nowhere to be seen to hand-over the charge. The sulking official Number 2 in the Modi government was sitting at his residence clearing 200-odd files before Amit Shah could reach the desk.
Singh was upset because his predecessor Nirmala Sithraman who shifted to Finance Ministry had not come to handover charge to him on June 1. Secondly, Defence Ministry is governed directly by the PMO with NDA Ajit Doval keeping a direct eye and PM personally handling all sensitive matters. Interestingly, Nirmala Sitharaman did not miss even an hour and rushed to take the charge of the Finance Ministry on May 31 immediately after allocation of portfolio. Earlier, she went to the residence of Arun Jaitley and took his blessings and straight went to the North Block. When Rajnath Singh reached there on June he found only secretaries and defence forces heads.
Same happened to S Jaishankar when he landed at the Ministry as his predecessor Sushma Swaraj was not there to handover the charge. Since she was not a member of parliament either and had not been inducted into any ministry, she sat home and watched events on TV. The story was same with Ravi Shankar Prasad who had taken charge of the Communications Ministry as his predecessor Manoj Sinha was nowhere to be seen as he had lost his Lok Sabha seat. Of course, he got a big promotion as he retained his other two ministries- Law and IT. Woman & Child and Texiles Minister Smriti Irani expected that Maneka Gandhi would come to hand over the charge. But the 8th term MP didn't show up to handover the charge of the Woman & child Development Ministry. Later, Smriti Irani went to her house to pay her regards.
Ambala MP Rattan Lal Kataria who was appointed a Minister of State for Social Justice & Environment landed in the ministry to take the charge. There is one Cabinet Minister and three MoS in the ministry of “great importance” in the Modi's social engineering era. But neither he had the room and nor anyone to receive him there. Frustrated Katarai called up his senior Thaawar Chand Gehlot who told him to come on June 4 to take charge with him. Suresh Prabhu was the only former minister in the commerce who was present to handover the charge to Piyush Goyal in Udyog Bhawan as per protocol and best of courtesies.
Ends
