BJP mulling replacement of two Ministers, Kavinder’s induction as Minister;
PDP undecided about Baig but Basharat, Imran getting important portfolios
Srinagar:Completing 16 months in office early next month, Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP-BJP coalition Government is likely to go for a reshuffle in the Council of Ministers immediately after the election for Vice President of India on August 5. If well-placed political sources are to be believed, Chief Minister Mufti has made up her mind to restore dignity of two of her Cabinet Ministers, namely Syed Basharat Bukhari and Imran Raza Ansari, by way of allocating to them two important portfolios. When Mufti inducted senior PDP leader Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari as Minister of Education and consequently changed portfolios of a number of her Ministers on February 17 this year, Basharat and Imran tendered resignation over allotment of “insignificant portfolios” to them.
While as Basharat was miffed over losing his Revenue and Rehabilitation portfolio to the PDP leader Abdul Rehman Veeri and getting only Horticulture, Imran was reportedly disappointed over not getting a portfolio of his choice. Imran had been reportedly promised the portfolio of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution. Even as both the Ministers sounded publicly irreconcilable and asserted separately that they would not return to office until given better portfolios, both attended their offices soon.
Sources insist that Basharat would retain Horticulture and get back the Department of Disaster Management, Relief and Rehabilitation which had been created as a result of his initiative early this year. Imran could retain his portfolio of Youth Services and Sports, lose Information Technology and Technical Education to Chowdhary Zulfikar in lieu of his key portfolio of CAPD. Zulfikar would continue to retain Department of Information.
On PDP side, the most important development could be induction of the former Deputy Chief Minister and currently Lok Sabha member from North Kashmir, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, as a Minister against a vacant berth in the Cabinet. Even as Chief Minister was all praise in PDP’s raising day function for Baig’s efforts in resolving the GST crisis with the Centre, she is said to be still undecided over demand of his induction in the Cabinet. Sources told that the BJP top brass had “almost decided” to replace two of its ministers—one Cabinet Minister and one Minister of State—who would be given key assignments in the party. Besides, there was a strong possibility of Kavinder Gupta being replaced as Speaker by former Minister Sukhnandan. In that case, Kavinder Gupta would be inducted as a Cabinet Minister.
Minister of State Sunil Kumar Sharma, who is holding independent charge of Transport, is likely to be elevated to Cabinet. According to these sources, BJP was considering MLAs Shakti Parihar and Ravinder Raina as Ministers of State. Election for Vice President of India is scheduled to be held on August 5 and the result would be declared on the same day.