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| Saifuddin Soz is joining Mufti's party | | Farooq Abdullah to be Union Tourism Minister | |
NEW DELHI, Apr 1:
Kashmir's tallest political leader, Farooq Abdullah, will be the new Union Tourism Minister. Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, took the decision to accommodate Farooq Abdullah in the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre after holding separate meetings with Sonia Gandhi and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Farooq Abdullah was also contacted by the Prime Minister on telephone. The National Conference patron and former Chief Minister of J&K, Farooq, was taken by surprise when the Prime Minister informed him of his plan to provide a Ministerial berth to him in the UPA government.
Farooq Abdullah, who is known for his ambition to be in Rashtrapati Bhavan as India's next President, is reported to have thanked the Prime Minister for the offer of a Ministerial post to him.
A minor reshufle in the Union Council of Ministers has become unavoidable, after the reported insistence of the present Tourism Minister, Ambika Soni, to give up her Ministerial office and to concentrate her attention and enery on the organisational matters of the Congress party. According to sources, Ambika played a "secret" role while wooing the Prime Minister and the Congress president in support of Farooq Abdullah's entry into the Union Cabinet.
Farooq Abdullah's former National Conference party colleague, Prof. Saifuddin Soz, at present the Union Minister for Water Resources, is joining the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP) of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.
Prof. Soz has not yet quit his Ministerial post, although he is reported to have conveyed to the Congress high command his 'plan' to join the PDP. Of all the Central Ministers, Prof. Soz was the only person who wanted the Prime Minister to give a serious thought to Mufti Sayeed's demand for the troop withdrawal in Kashmir.
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