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Fumbling on cabinet formation

Praful Bidwai
GIVEN its impressive victory, the United Progressive Alliance should have formed the new government smoothly and quickly. But even three weeks after the election results, its formation remains incomplete. The UPAfielded Ms. Meira Kumar as Lok Sabha Speaker after she had been sworn in as water resources minister. This shows confusion.
The Tamil party D.MK's bargaining for berths further messed up cabinet formation. Although Dr. Manmohan Singh resisted appointing a corrupt DMK ex-minister, he yielded to party supremo M. Karunanidhi's pressure to accommodate six MPs in the council of ministers, including three cabinet ministers.
Congress-style dynastic politics has now infected the DMK, BJP, National Conference and the Nationalist Congress too.
More generally, 50 of the 81 MPs who are
below40 come from "political families." As do 22 of the Congress's 25 young MPs. Of the 58 first-time MPs under 40, 25 belong to similar families. This family monopolisation runs against the election's overall trend: participation, inclusion and diversity.
The number of Lok Sabha women MPs has crossed the 10-percent mark to reach 58, but almost two-thirds of them are close relations of male politicians. Seventeen of the 29 first-time women MPs are proxies for their fathers, husbands, brothers or fathers-in-law. This partially negates the election'sgender-empoweringaspect.
The 33-member cabinet’s composition is unbalanced too. Regional satraps arc over-represented in it. Nine cabinet ministers are former chief ministers. Also, nine cabinet ministers are from the Upper House.
The state-wise distribution of the council of ministers, including ministers of states (MoSs or junior ministers), is skewed, with Tamil Nadu claiming 10 positions, followed by Maharashtra (nine), West Bengal (eight, its highest ever) and Kerala (six).
By contrast, Uttar Pradesh, four times bigger than Kerala, has just five ministers, all of them MoSs. Bihar, Orissa and Assam have one minister each.
The Hindi-speaking states (UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal) have only 16 pbsitions in the 79-strong council despite the UPA winning 65 seats from there. In 2004, the UPA had 59 MPs but 24 ministers from the Hindi belt.
Andhra Pradesh, like UR is another game-changer state. There, the Congress won 33 of 42 seats. Andhra Pradesh is represented by only one cabinet minister.
UP has no cabinet minister - partly because Mr. Rahul Gandhi kept out of the government, and the Congress wanted to signal his primacy and indispensability.
But Maharashtra, where the Congress-led alliance won 25 seats, has five cabinet ministers. And Kerala, where the Congress won 13 seats, has six ministers, including two of cabinet rank. Rajasthan, where the Congress won 21 of 25 seats, gets only one cabinet minister.
Dalits are relatively well represented in the council, with four cabinet berths and five MoSs, including one with independent charge. This, like Ms. Kumar's nomina-
tion as speaker, reflects the Congress's anxiety to counter Ms. Mayawati.
But Adivasis have only one cabinet post. Similarly, Chhattisgarh, and most northeastern states, all with strong tribal populations, have been left out of the council.
Muslims greatly facilitated the Congress's victory, especially in UP But there are only five Muslims in the council.
There's only one Muslim from the Hindi heartland, Salman Khurshecd. And there are only two Muslim cabinet ministers (Ghulam Nabi Azad and Farooq Abdullah, both from J&K)
By the Sachar Committee's “"air representation" principle, there should be 11 Muslims in the council. Had Mr. Khurshced, a seasoned leader, and Shree Prakash Jaiswal, an OBC, been given cabinet rank, UP would have had a better profile.
Just as the Congress didn't implement the affirmative action for educationally and socially backward Muslims recorn mended by the Sachar Committee, it didn't give Muslims adequate representation in the council of ministers.
The Congress/UPA must correct this anomaly. Muslims have long been under-represented in India's political life. They form 13.4 percent of the population, but only 5.5 percent of Lok Sabha MPs are Muslims. The number of Muslim MPs has fallen from 34 in 2004 to 30. Of these 30,11 belong to the Congress, four to the BSR four to regional Muslim parties, and three each to the TYinamool Congress and National Conference.
The Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Telugu Desam have no Muslim MPs.
Dvo factors explain this. First, the first-past-the-post system favours geographically concentrated groups, but discriminates against dispersed ones. Second, many parties under-nominate Muslims as candidates on the "winnability" criterion.
The problem can be resolved only if secular parties consciously give more nominations and better representation to Muslims. The Congress hasn't done that -despite warning signs of the rise of new Muslim parties in UP It must correct course.
The choice of certain ministers raises uncomfortable questions about the UPA's policy direction. For instance, Mr. S M. Krishna, a novice to international affairs, will find himself out of his depth as foreign minister. But perhaps Dr. Singh prefers him there because he himself wants an active role in the ministry along with MoS ShashiTharoor.
A first-time MP (indeed a first-time voter), Mr. Tharoor is experienced in inter-
national, not Indian, diplomacy. He is pro-Western and strongly pro-US, and uncritically pro-Israel. This doesn't augur well for India's foreign policy.
Similarly, Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal favours privatisation of education. He was appointed just when commercial institutions and foreign universities are trying to enter the Indian education market.
The first event Mr. Sibal attended as HRD minister was a business-sponsored meeting. This sends a bad signal.
Junior environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh says the prime minister wants him to work to "correct the (...) public perception (...) that (the ministry is] a hurdle to economic growth. We need to have a more business-friendly and transparent regulatory system."
This signals capitulation to industry and a further whittling down of already lax environmental regulations. The MoEF is clearing three projects a day -- obviously without adequate scrutiny.
None of this speaks of a healthy policy evolution. If the new government wants to remain true to its electoral mandate, it must spurn deregulation and privatisation. Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian column 1st
Email’ bldwal@bol netln