BL KAK
NEW DELHI, Apr 29
Even as Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has, under the Constitution, powers to hire and fire any member in the Council of Ministers he is heading, it is the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, who continues to call the shots. No wonder, she is, at present, under tremendous pressure to bring about "drastic" changes in the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre.
According to reports doing the rounds in the capital, senior leaders of two Left parties want the Congress to show the door to three prominent figures--Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Venugopal Reddy, and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
If these reports were to be believed, Sonia Gandhi is also under pressure from a section of her partymen, including over a dozen MPs, to make her Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, get rid of Chidambaram, Venugopal Reddy and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Some senior Congress leaders are reported to have resented what they call "far-from-encouraging style of functioning" of Finace Minister, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission and Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
More importantly, many communists no longer believe that the threat of the BJP coming to power must be the only reason to support the Congress-led UPA government. These communists, like some Congressmen, believe that after losing in 2004 the BJP was dead forever. However the "wrong" economic policies of the UPA government and the "unwise" political policies of the Congress party have, according to them, combined to pour life into the beleaguered BJP, revived it and reincarnated it as the only credible national party in the country.
The communists, by and large, believe that the Congress has "gifted" a series of victories to the BJP and its allies in Bihar, Maharshtra, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Delhi. On present indications, Left parties will review their support to the Congress-led UPA government after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll results are out on May 11.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi is stated to have decided to completely overhaul the AICC after the UP elections. Several PCC chiefs are also expected to be replaced. Following the victory of the BJP in the recent municipal polls in Delhi, Sonia Gandhi has come under pressure to change both Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, and Delhi PCC president, Rambabu Sharma.
The Congress high command has received a suggestion from a group of party leaders calling for more than one PCC president in larger States. If Sonia Gandhi endorses the suggestion, then as many as 10 States--UP, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh-- will have organisational structural changes.
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