Not a very happy state of affairs
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led coalition government installed at the Centre today is conspicuous by heavy representation to some states and none at all to as many as 17 states and Union Territories.
Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu get the lion's share of seven berths
each in the 43-member ministry, while the states that go
unrepresented are Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal, Manipur, Andaman and Nicobar, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep
and Pondicherry.
Only 14 states find a berth in the council of ministers.
Partywise, the BJP, as expected, got the maximum share in the ministry -- 10 Cabinet rank and 14 ministers of state, besides, of course, the prime ministership.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, whose general secretary J Jayalalitha had reservations earlier about joining the government, has got two Cabinet and two ministers of state berths.
The Samata Party has got two Cabinet berths; the BJD one Cabinet and one minister of state berths; the Akali Dal one Cabinet and one minister of state berths; the Shiv Sena,
the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress and the Lok Shakti one Cabinet berth each; the Pattali Makkal Kattchi and the Arunachal Congress one minister of state berth each.
Three Independents or unattached members have been included in the Cabinet. While Buta Singh and Ram Jethmalani get Cabinet berths, Maneka Gandhi, who won with BJP support from Pilibhit in UP as an Independent, becomes a minister of state.
Among the pre-poll allies of the BJP, the Trinamul Congress
headed by firebrand Mamta Banerjee, V Gopalswamy's Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham, Chief Minister Bansi Lal's Haryana Vikas Party and Dr Subramanian Swamy's Janata Party do not find a place in the government.
The parties which had extended support to a BJP government
after the poll, including the Haryana Lok Dal and the Sikkim Democratic Front, have also not been included in the government.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Gegong Apang, who had lobbied for mustering support to the Vajpayee government among the independents and small groups from the north-east, has been rewarded with the appointment of his son Omak Apang as a minister of state.
Samata Party leader George Fernandes, who had only the other day announced that he would not become a minister himself, is also in.
The state-wise representation in the ministry is, UP: prime minister, one Cabinet and five minister of state berths; Tamil Nadu: four Cabinet and three minister of state berths; Bihar: three Cabinet and one minister of state berths; Gujarat: two Cabinet and one minister of state berths; Karnataka: two Cabinet and one minister of state berths; Madhya Pradesh: two Cabinet and two minister of state berths; Maharashtra: two Cabinet and one minister of state berths; Punjab: one Cabinet, one minister of state berths; Delhi: two Cabinet minister berths; Orissa: one
Cabinet and two minister of state berths; Rajasthan: one Cabinet and one minister of state berths; and Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh: one minister of state berth each.
Both the BJP's Muslim MPs, Sikandar Bakht and Mukhtar
Abbas Naqvi who defeated Rampur royal Begum Noor Bano in the election, have been included in the ministry.
The prime minister, Advani, Fernandes, Bakht and
Barnala were members of the Morarji Desai government in
1977.
Five of the ministers were also in the 13-day Vajpayee government in 1996: Bakht, Dr Joshi, Jethmalani, Suresh Prabhu and Sushma Swaraj.
UNI
Elections '98
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