The final stages of the long due cabinet reshuffle are underway. Sources close to UPA chairperson Sonia gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh have revealed that the two leaders held initial consultations with the members of the Congress core group comprising Rahul Gandhi, Ahmad Patel and others on the issue. There are indications that an announcemnt might be made on the tweaking of the council of ministers sometime between January 14 and January 22.

Strong hints of a change in guard of Congress leadership at state levels emerged at the party's recently concluded plenary session. Younger faces are likely to get key All India Congress Committee (AICC) posts while the average age of Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) is also set to dip. The constitution of the 15-member media team with ministers like Ambika Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad validates the current thinking, sources added.

Ambika Soni's handling of the Prasar Bharti CEO B S Lalli's episode could also push her prospects in the party leadership. Rahul Gandhi, however, will confine himself to party activities. with the budget session near, the prime minister will have to quickly evaluate and pick new faces for his council before the discussed reshuffle dates. Sonia Gandhi would also have her task cut out in decking the Congress Working Committee.

There are also indications of party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi being inducted into the government. with Singh saddled with running the prime minister's office without the assistance of a minister of state after Prithviraj Chavan became the Maharashtra chief minister, Suresh Pachauri is tipped to fill the vacancy. The prime minister is holding various portfolios and would need a MoS to answer on his behalf in Parliament and Pachauri, who is in charge of the party in Madhya Pradesh, is seen as the best man for the job.

Those whose jobs hang by a thread are road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath, heavy industries minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Social justice minister Mukul Wasnik, steel minister Virbhadra Singh and a couple of other junior ministers. Most of them are already feeling the heat over a poor showing at the helm or graft.

Sharad Pawar's ouster from the food and agriculture ministry is also a strong possibility given his repeated failure in checking rising food prices and the rotting foodgrains controversy. The fact that food inflation rose 22 percent in the last five years while average inflation remained at six percent does not help his case either. However, Pawar's ouster could be mere tokenism as he or some other Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has to be accomodated at another ministry. Similarly, the DMK is also pushing for a ministry after A Raja's exit from the telecom ministry. Whether the Congress indulges the DMK or not could portend its decision on aligning with the DMK in the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections. External affairs minister S M Krishna is being tipped for a significant position in the cabinet while commerce minister Anand Sharma may be shifted to South Block.

While the senior-most ministers will, in all probability, hold on to their portfolios, it is being hinted that the Congress leadership is less than happy with the ongoing cold war between two cabinet biggies - finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidmabaram. In the wake of the Radia leaks, it had been widely speculated that either of the two ministries could have leaked the tapes since both ministers stood to gain politically from the move. Both of them had access to the tapes, but close scrutiny of the published transcripts hinted at significant political dvidends for Chidamabaram, according to some. However, reports of a central inquiry of the leak prompted a denial from the home ministry which said that the matter was under the domain of the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) and it alone had the authority to probe the issue. The CBDT, though, has offered no clue of whether an inquiry is on or not.