Tough for Vidarbha to get 3 berths

NAGPUR: With only a day left for the swearing-in ceremony of the UPA government led by prime minister Manmohan Singh in its second term, the race

for berths in the new government has intensified. Vidarbha has three strong claimants — Praful Patel of the NCP and Vilas Muttemwar and Mukul Wasnik from the Congress.

The Muttemwar camp is hopeful that he would get a promotion to the cabinet rank this time. He was a minister of state for new and renewable energy in the last government. Now in his seventh term, his supporters say the fact that he has won for the fourth consecutive time from Nagpur that houses the RSS headquarters, may get extra weightage.

Wasnik is a Dalit face in the party who is also expecting rewards for contribution to the party’s splendid performance in Rajasthan in the Lok Sabha elections and that of the state assembly earlier this year. Wasnik was AICC in-charge of the desert state. He has brought the Ramtek seat in Nagpur district back to the Congress fold by wresting it from the Shiv Sena whose saffron flag had fluttered there for the last three terms.

Patel made it to the Lok Sabha after a gap of one decade by winning the Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha seat. The last time he won a parliamentary election was in 1998 from Bhandara. After his defeat in 2004 from the same seat, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state. But as a minister of state of aviation (independent charge) his performance was impressive as he took the sector to a new high by placing orders for a large number of aircraft and modernising all major airports of the country.

The Patel camp is confident that he would get a ministerial berth but the chances of his getting back the same portfolio look dim as a resurgent Congress has made up its mind not to part with important portfolios.

The only way Patel could get a promotion to the cabinet rank will be if NCP party supremo Sharad Pawar bows out from the ministerial queue to make a place for his daughter Supriya Sule who inherited Baramati, a well-nurtured constituency of her father.

However, as per one calculation, Maharashtra may not get more than three cabinet berths and three posts of ministers of state from the Congress quota. This time, the party has won 18 Lok Sabha seats and normally, the ratio for allotting ministerial berths is 3:1. Add to this one cabinet and junior minister slots from the Rajya Sabha quota making it 4 cabinet and four junior seats for Congressmen. Mumbai, with a strong force of five Congress MPs may also get better representation this time. There are some strongmen like Suresh Kalmadi of Pune who are also eyeing ministerial posts putting serious doubts on whether Vidarbha could pull of three berths.