The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Tuesday, October 16, 2001, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I N N E W S

George back as Defence Minister
Harin Pathak also reinducted
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 15
The founder of the Samata Party and one of the main troubleshooters of the two-year-old NDA government George Fernandes today staged a comeback in the Council of Ministers with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee giving him a clean chit in the Tehelka expose.

President K R Naryanan and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with newly inducted ministers George Fernandes and Harin Pathak after the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday. — PTI photo

Mr Fernandes, who was sworn in as a Cabinet minister at a brief and simple mid-day ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, was back in the same Defence Minister’s seat in the South Block after a gap of seven months, establishing his political clout as well as usefulness beyond doubt.

Along with Mr Fernandes, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Gujarat and former Minister of State for Defence Production Harin Ramchandra Pathak was also re-inducted in the Council of Ministers. Mr Pathak, who had resigned after he had been chargesheeted in the 1984 riot case, was also back in the same old Defence Ministry with charge of Defence Production.

While Samata Party leaders and its Lok Sabha MPs were present in almost full strength, the Opposition was conspicuous by its absence. The Opposition parties, which had taken exception to Mr Vajpayee’s reported intention to reinduct Mr Fernandes into the Union Cabinet, did not attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Mr Vajpayee’s Cabinet colleagues, including Union Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Railway Minister Nitesh Kumar, were present.

While this is the sixth expansion-cum-reshuffle of the Vajpayee-led council, the Prime Minister ruled out any further reshuffle or expansion before the coming winter session of Parliament.

The return of Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee and PMK leader S. Ramadoss to the Council of Ministers is thus ruled out for the time being.

Talking to newspersons after the ceremony, Mr Vajpayee gave a clean chit to Mr Fernandes, saying that even a notice served on him by the Justice Venkatswami Commission, which is probing into the Tehelka scandal, was not based on any charge. The commission has not indicted him, he said. “Nothing against him has come out till now”, the Prime Minister said, adding that he was an efficient minister.

Meanwhile, hours after he was reinducted as Defence Minister George Fernandes today said he has come back to the government on the specific request of the Prime Minister but felt there was no “moral question” involved in his being in the Cabinet and Defence Ministry.

“I was told by the Prime Minister on Friday that I should be back in the government.... I have returned on the specific request of the Prime Minister,” Mr Fernandes told ‘Star News’. Asked if the moral ground on which he resigned earlier was not valid anymore, Mr Fernandes said “there was never a moral question in this.”

Reinduction a political compulsion
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 15
While security and strategic compulsions in the wake of the USA’s ongoing “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan forced the Vajpayee government to have a full-fledged Defence Minister immediately, it was out and out political compulsion that necessitated the installing of Mr George Fernandes on this hot seat which he had vacated seven months ago.

The fact that the usually astrology-conscious Vajpayee government went ahead with the brief but significant Cabinet expansion today at the fag end of “malmaas” — devout Hindus abstain from launching any major activity during this period generally considered not good — speaks volumes about the government’s pressing need. Sources said the government wanted to have a full-fledged Defence Minister without ado — preferably before US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s scheduled arrival here on Tuesday — as the country’s security managers have been pressing for a massive security operation in Kashmir to take advantage of the Afghanistan situation.

With this move, the government has rather opted to put itself on a sticky wicket and is prepared to weather the political storm that the opposition parties are sure to generate in the run-up to the winter session of Parliament session, beginning November 19, during the Parliament session and also during campaigning for the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Well-placed sources in the government here told “The Tribune” today that till Friday afternoon the government had almost made up its mind to bring Planning Commission Deputy Chairman and Centre’s interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir, Mr K.C. Pant, as Defence Minister. But all this changed after Mr Fernandes met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Friday evening.

Sources said the Fernandes camp had started building up pressure on the government since the political rehabilitation of tehelka-tainted former BJP President Bangaru Laxman earlier this month. Mr Laxman, a Dalit leader, was recently appointed Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Committee on House Allotment. Yesterday, Mr Laxman had shared the dais with the Prime Minister in Agra at the BJP Yuva Morcha session and travelled to Agra in Mr Vajpayee’s plane. The symbolism thus emanating from the PMO was clear: the government and the BJP could no longer ignore for the coming UP Assembly elections a Dalit leader like Mr Laxman, irrespective of the outcome of the Justice Venkataswamy Commission.

In the wake of Mr Laxman’s rehabilitation, the Fernandes camp tossed a virtually unplayable googly at the government: when Laxman is rehabilitated without waiting for the Venkataswamy Commission report, why can’t the same logic be extended to Fernandes? And whether by doing so the government would not be harming its own important ally politically? The government had no answer to this.

The government leadership has defended Mr Fernandes’ reinduction on two counts: (i) that he was the best Defence Minister the country has ever had over the past so many decades; and (ii) that he has been very popular with the armed forces, being the only Defence Minister of India to have visited the Siachen glacier 17 times during his 17 months of defence ministership despite the fact that he is now 74 years old.

But the counter-argument is that the government was well aware of all this on March 15 this year when Mr Fernandes’ resignation from the Cabinet was accepted on account of the Tehelka scandal.

The opposition parties are likely to ask the government the most uncomfortable question that when Mr Fernandes himself had gone on record that he would not rejoin the government until his name was cleared by the Venkataswamy Commission, what had happened now? In fact, the Justice Venkataswamy Commission, which is still conducting proceedings, has publicly stated that the Tehelka tapes were genuine.