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From our Delhi correspondent
Divestment Minister Arun Shourie has been given additional charge of the commerce ministry to answer questions in Parliament. He will take the place of Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran, who is on ventilator for the past 10 days in a private hospital in Chennai.
Shourie has also been deputed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to represent India at the World Trade Organisation meeting that begins in Geneva on November 13.
In addition to this change, the one-to-one meeting between Defence Minister George Fernandes and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa also hints at the possibility that not just Maran, but the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam itself may soon be dumped by Vajpayee in favour of Jayalalithaa's All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
That Shourie had taken over from the ailing Maran became known only when Commerce Secretary Deepak Chatterjee and a team of joint secretaries called on him to brief him about the WTO conference and the stand taken by Maran on behalf of the government at the last session.
DMK chief M Karunanidhi had been pressing for the appointment of another DMK Member of Parliament till Maran recovers. But Shourie's appointment closes the commerce portfolio for the party.
This change could also be a hint towards other DMK ministers being shown the door soon to accommodate AIADMK members.
The decision to shunt out the DMK could also be on account of Karunanidhi figuring among the list of personalities named in the M C Jain Commission's report. The Central Bureau of Investigation-led Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency, which is investigating the conspiracy angle in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, is hot on his heels in the matter.
During his meeting with Jayalalithaa, Fernandes is believed to have sought the support of the AIADMK to a move, in the offing, to table a resolution in the Lok Sabha about the questionable conduct of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Fernandes's Samata Party Member of Parliament, Prabhunath Singh, told rediff.com that he had already written to Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi about Gandhi's 'wrong' information about her education at Cambridge University.
Fernandes looks to be engineering these exercises to embarrass Gandhi in return for the Congress continuously boycotting him in Parliament.
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