New Delhi, December 19
The passing of the 97th Constitution Amendment Bill by Parliament this week restricting the size of the Cabinet is unlikely to create any heartburn amongst the NDA partners as the present Council of Ministers is well within the limit set by the Bill of 15 per cent of the House.
Rather, Mr Vajpayee could please his coalition partners as two vacancies have emerged in his 81-member Cabinet following the death of DMK leader Murasoli Maran and the resignation of BJP member from Chhattisgarh Dilip Singh Judeo, following the alleged cash-on-camera expose.
The Bill, awaiting Presidential approval, states that “the total number of ministers, including the Prime Minister, in the Council of Ministers, shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the House of the People.”
While the Prime Minister has asked the DMK to suggest its member to be appointed in the Union Cabinet, the one berth vacated by Mr Judeo could be extended by Mr Vajpayee to the allies or a BJP member could be nominated in view of the Lok Sabha poll scheduled later this year.
Of the 545 members in the Lok Sabha, two are nominated by the President, including one from the Anglo-Indian community. Although the two nominated members do not have voting rights, they are not debarred from being members of the Council of Ministers. Moreover, even members of the 250-member Rajya Sabha can be made ministers.
Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley said the government moved the Bill as the Union and
state governments had become “very large and the Cabinet had become unwieldy.”
He said the government had proposed that the size of the Cabinet should be restricted to 10 per cent of the legislative strength. However, the government wanted to make a difference in relation to unicameral House and bicameral House.
Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee, whose Standing Committee examined the Bill, said the legislation had become necessary to cleanse the political system.
He said the Bill incorporated the suggestion of the committee to do away with jumbo Cabinet by restricting it to 15 per cent of the size of Lok Sabha or state assemblies. In case of smaller states, the Cabinet size would be restricted to 12.
In states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, the Bill provides for inclusion for more members in the Cabinet. In these state, the BJP, AIADMK, TDP and INLD, respectively, are ruling with substantial majority in the House.
On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has the herculean task of dropping 37 ministers from his Cabinet, which could place the coalition government in a precarious situation.
While the dissidents in the Punjab Congress not having dropped their guns yet, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh faces, another hurdle of dropping eight ministers at a time when there are talks of accommodating the dissidents in the Cabinet.
However, the saving grace is that the Bill provides the state governments six months to get rid of the excess numbers and those in the “endangered category” can enjoy power and other benefits which come with ministerial positions for some more time.
However, the Chief Ministers will not have to fear of stability of the government as the Bill bans defections and does away with the distinction between “defection” and “split” and plugs the loophole in the anti-defection law, which enabled horse-trading en masse.
