A day after the two Congress MlAs from Garhwal division - Badrinath MlA Rajendra Singh Bhandari and Vikasnagar MlA Navprabhat - were inducted in the State Cabinet, they are yet to be allocated portfolios despite being provided with the facilities they are entitled to as Cabinet Ministers.
Observers say that true to his style, Chief Minister Harish Rawat has kept the two on tenterhooks. Rawat has disarmed his critics both within and outside the Congress by the induction of the two from the long-neglected Garhwal region.
He thus has struck a balance between the ministerial aspirations of Garhwal and Kumaon regions. “This was important in view of the election a few months away. There his game seems to have ended with little concern left for the portfolios to be given to the duo,” said a State observer.
It is learnt that the Congress High Command gave Harish Rawat a free hand to induct Ministers according to his judgment. "This is what is supposed to have transpired when Rawat met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi a few days ago.
However, it is not clear whether the party top brass would leave things to the CM as far as the allocation of portfolios is concerned,” an observer said.
There is another set of reasoning too doing the rounds. Sources privy to the CM office said that the CM is finding it a hard to zero in on the portfolios that the two newly-inducted Ministers deserve in view of the crucial roles they played when Harish Rawat was embattled. “Things would be settled in a day or two,” said sources.
However, the Congress insiders say that the two newly-inducted Ministers are bargaining for such prized portfolios which the CM is singularly reluctant to part with. “They are justified in demanding their pound of flesh in lieu of the critical support they lent to the party during the grim period of political turmoil. But the CM has his own compulsions to retain most of the portfolios he has been looking after with the State Assembly election drawing near,” said sources based in Congress.
Sources further said that one of the two Cabinet Ministers is demanding PWD portfolio. If given, it would provide him with enough space to do some spectacular works to endear the electorate to him.
“A few months being left, the Minister is bargaining hard to get the important portfolio to milk it to the maximum extent possible to further his electoral interests,” sources added.
Sources said the two new Cabinet Ministers are spending tense hours with their portfolios eluding them even a day after they were inducted. Those close to them said that both are over-brimming with zeal to start works on the ground at the earliest. “The more the delay the more impatient they would turn.”