Union cabinet reshuffle likely soon

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to go for a reshuffle of his council of ministers in the next fortnight, UPA sources said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to go for a reshuffle of his council of ministers in the next fortnight, UPA sources said on Sunday.

HT Image

Though the date is yet to be fixed, the possibility of a reshuffle taking place between June 6 and 12 is high.

A senior UPA functionary said President Pranab Mukherjee and the Prime Minister have packed schedule in June and would be travelling within the country and hence the only window left is this period.

Also, if the government decides to call a special session in the first week of July, the new ministers should get some to settle down in their new assignments.

The Prime Minister has already indicated that a cabinet reshuffle was on the cards to fill up the vacancies. “There are some vacancies. The issue of filling them up is being considered,” he told reporters on his way back home from Japan and Thailand.

There are several vacancies in the union council of ministers after the exit of Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar. While Bansal resigned as railways minister last month in the wake of bribery scandal involving his nephew, Kumar quit as law minister following a controversy over changing a draft CBI report on coal block allocations scam.

The vacancies created by resignations of DMK ministers following the southern party’s withdrawal of support to the UPA government in March this year also would be filled up.