3 new faces in Khattar govt
Faridabad MLA Vipul Goyal sworn in as cabinet minister; Bawal MLA Banwari Lal, Rohtak MLA Manish Grover inducted as ministers of state (independent charge)
MLAs Vipul Goyal (Faridabad), Banwari Lal (Bawal), Manish Grover (Rohtak) inducted as ministers in Haryana govt.
CHANDIGARH: Three new faces were inducted in the Haryana council of ministers on Friday, the second cabinet reshuffle in about a year. The last cabinet re-jig took place on July 23 last year.
Faridabad MLA Vipul Goyal was sworn in as a cabinet minister whereas Bawal MLA Banwari Lal and Rohtak MLA Manish Grover were inducted as ministers of state (independent charge).
Those dropped to make way for the new ministers were Bhiwani MLA Ghanshyam Saraf, who held the portfolio of public health engineering as minister of state (independent charge), and Kosli MLA Bikram Singh Yadav, who held the portfolio of co-operation as minister of state (independent charge).
With the reshuffle, the cabinet led by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has exhausted its ministerial slots, having a maximum 14 berths as per the Constitution-mandated 15% cap.
Friday’s expansion will also result in reallocation of portfolios of the ministers. While the two newly inducted ministers of state Manish Grover and Banwari Lal were likely to get the portfolios held by their ousted predecessors (public health engineering and co-operation as independent charge), Goyal may either get urban local bodies or labour and employment.
The allocation and shuffling of portfolios is likely to be given a final shape by Saturday.
KHATTAR DOES BALANCING ACT
While undertaking the cabinet reshuffle, Khattar has tried to do a balancing act by replacing Saraf who comes from Bania community with another Bania, Vipul Goyal. Bikram Yadav who represents Kosli assembly constituency in southern Haryana has been substituted with another southern Haryana MLA Banwari Lal.
However, replacement of Yadav by Banwari Lal, both considered close to union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, has not found favour with party’s Ahir leadership in southern Haryana as Lal comes from scheduled caste and Yadav’s ouster has left the cabinet with only one Ahir minister, Rao Narbir Singh.
The induction of Rohtak MLA Manish Grover is aimed at placating the Rohtak-Sonepat belt, witness to a large-scale violence during February’s Jat agitation and a stronghold of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. RESHUFFLE COVER-UP FOR SCAMS: DUSHYANT ROHTAK: Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MP Dushyant Chautala lashed out at the BJP government in Haryana on Friday, alleging the cabinet reshuffle was merely a cover-up for various scams.
“The BJP has corruption deep down in its nerves,” he said while talking to the media after he led a protest march by INLD workers here as part of the party’s awareness campaign against the failure of the state government to fulfil its promises. “The BJP had promised to give `9,000 per month to unemployed youth as allowance. But the government is neither generating jobs nor giving allowance to the youth,” Chautala said while addressing the party workers.
CAPTAIN DECIDES HIS TEAM: DHANKAR
Meanwhile, Haryana agriculture ministzer Om Prakash Dhankar on Friday said shuffling or expanding the cabinet was the prerogative of the chief minister.
“Just like a captain decides his team, a chief minister, captain of the state government, decides the shuffling or expansion. Whatever he decides will be good for Haryana’s governance,” Dhankar said who was here to attend the district grievance committee meeting.
The minister addressed to 12 grievances of residents at the DRDA hall here and gave solutions to most of them on the spot. These grievances included problems related to electricity, parking and malnutrition.
To a question, he denied vendetta against former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda who has been booked in a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate. “He has been booked for irregularities,” he said.