KT NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI: The 62-year old Girija Vyas, chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW) who lost to Meira Kumar in the race for the Lok Sabha Speakeship, appears again losing out the ministerial berth to another woman MP from her home state of Rajasthan.
She was hoping to get into the Union Ministry in the second lot that was sworn in on February 28, but she missed the bus.
Her wish to get into the Water Resources Ministry that Meira Kumar vacated on Sunday may also be dashed as Srikant Jena from Orissa is believed to be the front-runner for the post.
Indications are that Chandresh Kumari, a scion of the erstwhile Jodhpur royal family elected from Jodhpur, may get Jena's present charge as Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers.
Married to a Kangra ex-ruler and elected to both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh and has also been a minister in Himachal Pradesh, she shifted to Rajasthan to contest this time.
Sources say she may score over Girija Vyas also because of her caste as the negative factor in Girija's case is that she is a Brahmin and the Mewar region from where she comes has already another Brahmin C P Joshi in the Union Cabinet as the rural development minister.
Moreover, she enjoyed the status of a Cabinet minister as chairperson in the National Commission for Women and as such it will be difficult for her to accept the junior position as a minister of state, the sources added.
Jena, who has been twice the Cabinet Minister in the governments of V P Singh and H D Deve Gowda, has refused to join the Chemicals and Fertilizer Ministry as a minister of state as it amounted to a demotion, though he took the oath after getting an express promise from Sonia Gandhi to remove his grievance in due course.
He is now lobbying to be made the Cabinet Minister for Water Resources or at least a MOS with independent charge of Water Resources Ministry.
Girija Vyas was also eying at the Culture portfolio that the PM had initially kept with himself while giving only Tourism to Shelja.
That expectation also ended with Dr Manmohan Singh allotting the portfolio on Monday to Narayanasamy, Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs.
Deo deprived as speaker by former Andhra CM KT NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI: The 62-year old Vyricherla Kishore Chandra Deo, five time MP, would have become the Lok Sabha Speaker on Wednesday, but the post was snatched away from him because of Andhra Pradesh Congress politics.
A 2-page note by former Chief Minister Nedrumalli Janardhan Reddy (NJR) to Congress President Sonia Gandhi turned out to be the spoiler, a top source in 10 Janpath disclosed.
He said the decision to drop Deo was taken in the last minute on Saturday when Sonia Gandhi discussed the letter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders of the party's core group that met at the PM's house.
Meira Kumar, whose nominations were filed on Tuesday and will be unanimously elected the Speaker on Wednesday, was not at all in the reckoning until that crucial moment as Deo's name was already cleared by Sonia Gandhi herself right on the day the results were out on May 16, the source said.
As a matter of fact, Meira Kumar would not have been made the minister in the very first batch of ministers sworn in on May 22, nor would she have been allotted the Water Resources Ministry May 29 night if she was under consideration for the Speakership.
Her name propped up only on May 30 when Deo was dropped and she was trumpeted as the first wouldbe Dalit woman Speaker.
The source said NJR, who was a member in the 14th Lok Sabha and now a Rajya Sabha MP, mentioned about the "controversial antecedents of VKC (as Deo is known in Andhra politics)" in his note, pointing out that he had learnt many dubious details about VKC during his chief ministership which may surface if he were elected the Speaker.
The former CM urged Sonia Gandhi to consider any other candidate as the Speaker other than Deo lest revelations about his past affect the Congress image.
Warning that the Congress may have to concede pressure from the Opposition to make Deo resign, NJR stressed to avoid a controversial person who damages the Congress image despite winning the thumping majority.
As soon as NJR's note reached 10 Janpath, the source said Sonia Gandhi got panicky as she told the senior party leaders that she wants smooth functioning of the Lok Sabha and absolutely no controversy for one year.
It was at this stage that Sonia Gandhi applied her mind and what emerged was Meira Kumar as her personal choice, the source said.
Other party leaders agreed and the Prime Minister rang up Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani same Saturday night for unanimous election of Meira Kumar.
Deo, who was a Cabinet minister long ago in the Charan Singh government, was himself taken aback when he got a phone call from 10 Janpath on Saturday that the party has decided to field Meira Kumar and not him.
He has the reason to be surprised as he is among a handful number of leaders who are counted as Sonia's loyalists.
He, however, refused to comment when almost all senior leaders approached him in the Central Hall of the Parliament House to enquire what went wrong.
Advani was among those who stopped to enquire why he was dropped like a hot potato.
Advani had a praise of word for Deo for the way he conducted himself as the chairman of the privilege committee of the last Lok Sabha.
"You would have made the best Speaker.
You could have controlled the House Somnath Chatterjee," Advani told him.
Even the Left Party leaders who met Deo in the Central Hall were frank in telling him that he had the mettle to be an unopposed Speaker.
They told him that they no longer have any influence over his Congress Party but they cannot understand why he should be projected at all if he were not to get the Speaker's post.
