Independent charge for Shashi Tharoor likely

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Thiruvananthapuram: The names of Shashi Tharoor and Kodi­kunnil Suresh are doing the rounds with the much-awaited Union Cabinet reshuffle just a few hours away, on Monday evening, to be precise. C.P. Joshi and Ajay Maken had already tendered their resignation as cabinet ministers in view of the reshuffle. The reshuffle of the Man­mohan Singh Governme­nt is expected to be the last one in UPA-II with Lok Sabha elections less than a year away. 
Shashi Tharoor to get independent charge?
The two union ministers from the State, Shashi Tharoor and Kodikunnil Suresh are likely to get independent charge. Currently, they are Mini­ster of State for Human Resources Development and Minister of State for Labour, respectively.
 
Tharoor’s office in Thiruvananthapuram said he would be back here late on Sunday night. “There have been discussions in New Delhi on the minister being offered independent charge. But since he has initiated several projects in the HRD ministry, he is not keen to part with it. Even if he is given independent charge, he need not be sworn in again. More details will be known only by Monday morning”, said Praveen Ram, special private secretary to Tharoor.
 
The reshuffle-cum-expansion is expected to be utilised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to fill several vacancies in his Council of Ministers. The exercise will come one day after the overhaul of the Congress party apparatus in which Maken and Joshi along with Ambika Soni and Gurudas Kamat were brought in as general secretaries by the party which dropped Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Oscar Fernandes from these posts.
 
The names of Meenakshi Natarajan, considered close to party vice president Rahul Gandhi and Fernandes are being mentioned in Congress circles for a possible berth in the Union Council of Ministers. There was also speculation that Minister of State Charan Das Mahant, who hails from poll-bound Chattisgarh where the Congress leadership was attacked by Maoists recently, would be 
elevated.
 
Joshi, who was holding dual portfolios of surface transport and highways and railways, resigned following "directives" from the Congress high command, sources said. "Whatever new role the party assigns me I will perform that to the best of my ability”, Joshi tweeted. 
Maken, who was minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation, has expressed his desire to work for the party. His resignation comes ahead of the Assembly elections in Delhi later this year. The latest vacancies in the Cabinet were created by the resignations of union ministers P.K.Bansal and Ashwani Kumar.
 
Bansal quit as the railways minister last month in the wake of a bribery scandal involving his nephew and a Railway Board member. Kumar resigned as law minister following a controversy over vetting of a CBI probe report on the coal blocks allocation scam.