Kolkata, October 22
The Prime Minister’s plan to shift Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to the Ministry of External Affairs as the country’s new Foreign Minister could not be finalised because of the objection raised by Sonia Gandhi.
She was not keen that Mr Mukherjee be fully engaged in the ‘external affairs jobs’, as it will affect the Centre’s crisis management works, political as well administrative, in which Mr Mukherjee was largely involved, sources closed to the PMO disclosed.
But the proposal was not shelved yet and Dr Manmohan Singh was still negotiating with Mrs Gandhi and some other senior leaders for appointing Mr Mukherjee as the new Foreign Minister.
And once the Prime Minister’s new proposal is finalised, the Cabinet reshuffle will take place with some other minor changes in the government.
Dr Singh tried more than once to appoint someone to head the MEA, which he himself had been looking after, following the resignation of Natwar Singh after the Iraq oil scandal.
But he failed since no candidate, acceptable both to him and Mrs Gandhi, could be found.
The Defence Minister, reportedly, admitted to some of his close associates here that he had been sounded by the Prime Minister if he was ready to be shifted to the MEA to which he responded positively.
But Mr Mukherjee was not sure if the proposal was ultimately finalised.
It is reliably learnt that the Prime Minister had a plan to shift Mr P. Chidambaram, presently the Finance Minister, as the Defence Minister after Pranab taking over as the Foreign Minister.
In that case, Manmohan himself could look after the finance department for the time being which ultimately was to be filled by the former governor of the Reserve Bank, who was now acting as the PM’s economic adviser.
The proposal had been discussed at various levels and the leaders of the Left parties supporting the UPA government from the outside had been also sounded accordingly.
At one stage, the names of Mr Kamal Nath, Mr Sivraj Patil and Mr Kapil Sibal — all are in the Cabinet — were considered for post of a foreign minister. But none of them was acceptable unanimously.
