Ex-ministers swear, and stay away from swearing-in

Amitabh Shukla

New Delhi, December 6

The absence of all the sacked ministers and a large number of Congress MLAs took the sheen off the swearing-in ceremony of the new Delhi Cabinet at Raj Bhavan on Thursday, and gave ample indications of stepped up dissidence targeted at Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, AICC general secretary Kamal Nath and DPCC president Subhash Chopra.

Party sources said that most of the MLAs were asked to stay away from the function by a new group of dissidents, which included the axed ministers. A series of meetings among the dissidents on Wednesday was aimed at ensuring that the function 'flops' and the 'lopsided' reshuffle is exposed before the party president.

The deepening divide between Dikshit and Nath too became evident as the latter too chose to stay away from the function, ostensibly for attending Parliament, despite being in-charge of Delhi affairs. Several MLAs believed to be close to him followed suit. Only those MLAs who belong to the third front decided to attend the function, and that too half-heartedly. Interestingly, two of the sacked ministers and most of the MLAs attended the function to unveil the statue of BR Ambedkar in the Old Secretariat in the afternoon, in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi also participated.

"It has now become clear that neither Dikshit, nor Chopra or Nath are in control of the party affairs," said an MLA, suggesting that changes should also be carried out in the organisation and the national-level leader in charge of Delhi. "From now on, we will seek the redressal of our grievances from the Congress president rather than banking on the troika of Dikshit, Nath and Chopra who all are pulling in different directions to the detriment of the interests of the party," said an MLA who boycotted the swearing-in function.

Sources said that the Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar factions have already become active and are working out their strategy separately in view of the changes. The Tytler faction drew a blank in the reshuffle.

Parvez Hashmi, the ousted Transport Minister, has already hosted several sessions with the dissidents and has the tacit support of Narender Nath, the former Power Minister. Both hold Nath responsible for their removal from the Cabinet. Krishna Tirath, another sacked minister, too is coming close to this group. (2001)