Time was when there used to be two categories of cabinet ministers: those who worked and those who didn’t. With the UPA in its ninth year, there are four categories of them: bitter, angry, disgusted and arrogant. That is how a senior union minister put it.

 
The government is in such disarray that many frustrated ministers don’t bother to think twice before hurling accusations at the leadership – and that too in open.

Out of the 29 cabinet ministers, 25 are from the Congress, and five of them are bitter with the prime minister. Fifteen ministers are not just bitter but outright angry – not only against the PM but also against the Congress.

Then there are the arrogant ones. Many ministers agree that the arrogant category has four members. They will never change their ways whether they return to Lok Sabha in 2014 or not.

While there is no precise number of the disgusted ones, there is a minister in the class of his own. He comes to the cabinet meetings with heavy makeup and dying his greying hair black, so that he is presentable when he appears before TV cameras as spokesperson of the cabinet.

Kamal woos DMK

Urban development minister Kamal Nath, the Congress’s reliable hand for backdoor negotiations, has been in touch with DMK leaders. He recently urged them to take up some cushy nominations to the various standing committees and financial committees of parliament.

He also apparently managed European junkets for three MPs of the Congress’s estranged ally. One DMK MP wanted to get allotment of a DDA flat out of turn as he plans to launch business from the capital. The minister was to happy to oblige, and to smoothen the formality he wanted a medical certificate from this MP so that the accommodation committee of the cabinet might approve the request.

Kamal Nath seems to be cosying up with the former partner to revive the alliance. Does that have something to do with the possible special session of parliament on food security legislation? DMK after all has 18 crucial votes.

No takers for governors’ suggestions

Recommendations that came out of the 44th conference of governors, presided over by president Pranab Mukherjee in February, are gathering dust. Prime minister Manmohan Singh wrote to the union ministers directing them to take the recommendations seriously, and even attached a summary of the actionable ones among them.

But, as a union minister commented, who is bothered about governors’ suggestions when the country is going to polls in six months or so?

Anyway, the PM seems to have taken those recommendations seriously. He wanted the finance ministry and the planning commission to update him on the Bihar governor’s wish to have a 10,000 MW nuclear power plant in that state. Of course, he also reiterated chief minister Nitish Kumar’s demand for the special status to Bihar. The Rajasthan governor sought a refinery for his state and the PM asked the petroleum ministry to act quickly on this request.

Comings and goings on SP Marg

Sardar Patel Marg, passing through the heart of the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri in the heart of the capital, is a tony address to have. But the chairman of a private airline, which is now in red, had to leave this locality, as he sold his palatial house here for Rs 250 crore to pay salaries to his employees. Around the same time, the chairman of another private airline bought another bungalow on this road for Rs 200 crore and plans to move in by next year.