JAIPUR: The much expected cabinet reshuffle has gathered momentum with three ministers in the Ashok Gehlot government tendering their resignations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Ajay Maken revealed this to the media upon his unexpected arrival in Jaipur on Friday night.
The three ministers who have tendered resignations are school education minister and PCC president Govind Singh Dotasra, health minister and AICC in-charge for Gujarat Raghu Sharma and revenue minister and AICC in-charge for Punjab Harish Chaudhary. Dotasra is MoS, while Sharma and Chaudhary are cabinet ministers.
With their resignations, the vacancy in the Gehlot cabinet has increased to 12. The maximum strength allowed in the state cabinet is 30, going by the 15% cap rule in the 200-member state assembly.
The unannounced visit of Maken in Jaipur indicated that the cabinet reshuffle is likely to be held in the next few days.
Governor Kalraj Mishra is at present in his home state of Uttar Pradesh and scheduled to return on Saturday afternoon. According to sources, even the CM came to know of Maken’s visit only at the airport when he (Gehlot) returned from Banswara.
Maken told reporters that after meeting Congress MLAs one-on-one on July 30 some ministers had expressed a desire to work in the organisation instead of the government. Maken said that the three ministers had accordingly tendered their resignations to the Congress president, who had accepted the same.
According to law, the resignations ought to have been tendered to the governor directly, or through the CM.
Gehlot had given enough indications in the recent past about Dotasra leaving the ministry. At a teachers’ felicitation function held the other day, the CM had said that the education minister's speech at the function seemed like a farewell speech. He said that Dotasra had been requesting the party high command to divest him of one responsibility in keeping with the principle of "one man, one post".
A day earlier, Gehlot had said that the party would accommodate Independents and BSP-turned-Congress MLAs in the cabinet reshuffle for supporting the Congress government during the crisis created by BJP last July. Former deputy CM Sachin Pilot and his 18 MLAs had rebelled against the Gehlot government then. After the high command’s intervention, Gehlot will have to accommodate Pilot loyalists in the reshuffle.
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