Here what experts make of PM's latest Cabinet reshuffle

In Monday's cabinet rejig, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has inducted eight new faces in his team. Mallikarjun Kharge has been sworn in as the new railway minister, Oscar Fernandes as surface transport minster, Girija Vyas as housing and poverty alleviation minister, Sis Ram Ola from Rajasthan as labour minister, and KS Rao as the new textile minister. 

The Prime Minister has also appointed four new ministers of state in this reshuffle, which is being seen as the last one before the general elections. This is also the weekend when the 17-year-old marriage between the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) come apart.  And Anand Sharma saying that in the month of June itself, the government is going to unveil a slew of reforms. To discuss these developments, CNBC-TV18 talks to Sunil Jain, managing editor of The Financial Express, Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, Siddharth Zarabi, economic policy editor CNBC-TV18 and R Jagannathan, editor-in-chief, Web and Publishing Division at Network18. While Sardesai feels the cabinet reshuffle shows the intense amount of fatigue which has set inand is just the necessity to accommodate a few individuals ahead of elections. Zarabi feels the only thing that changed was the inclusion of three more ministers of state. Meanwhile, Jagannathan feels that this is the Modi effect, as the party realises that it has to have a political counter to growing image perceptions about Modi. Below is the edited transcript of the discussion with CNBC-TV18 Q: We are calling the show the slog overs, so, if I can use a cricketing analogy or a cricketing metaphor – the team that has been inducted today, doesn’t qualify as a T20 team, neither does it qualify as a test match team. So, what do we make of this cabinet reshuffle? Sardesai: I don’t even think its worth a programme. What it really shows is the intense amount of fatigue which has set in. This is not a cabinet reshuffle which has been driven by any big idea and not even a fill in the blanks, but just the necessity to accommodate a few individuals ahead of elections and the fact that the government has now run out of options in terms of really new faces or new talent that you can bring in. It is really an exercise which elevates mediocrity to the cabinet level. To my mind it will neither enthuse the government in any manner nor will it really bring any discredit because now we are as you said in the slog overs. In the slog overs, the fact is the only real batsmen this government seems to have at the moment is Chidambaram and the rest of them are just whiling away their time till the elections come in. Q: The story that we broke here on CNBC-TV18 was what this cabinet reshuffle would look like and what shape it would take. What we were hearing was that there could have been big changes, there could have been changes in defence for instance – that was the big talked-about portfolio. But again its this business of this government not wanting to take a risk and perhaps not wanting to take that bigger risk in the slog overs - that held them back? Zarabi: The big five are more of a wish list rather than actual possibility. Between yesterday and today the only thing that changed was the inclusion of three more ministers of state (MoS) names.The bigger thing was the party reshuffle and the government reshuffle actually was a secondary event to that. Q: The fact is that the guys who got out of the cabinet – Ajay Maken, CP Joshi who actually got out of the cabinet - that is the bigger story. Wouldn’t you agree with it? Sardesai: To be fair to the government, the real story is that it has now realised or the Congress party has now realised its future lies in the party organisation and not in the government. There is only so much that this Manmohan Singh government can do, but the party has a chance perhaps to salvage some lost ground. So, that is why the changes that have taken place are interesting in terms of the party. Digvijay Singh going for example to Andhra Pradesh, Madhusudan Mistry going to Uttar Pradesh and Ajay Maken who is a little bit more articulate becoming the head of its media department instead of Janardan Dwivedi who is a dinosaur. So, there has been a change. While in the government, look at what has happened. Sis Ram Ola – there was a lovely photograph today in the day on television where I don’t know whether he was with his grandchildren or great grand children. Here is an 84-year old who was removed from the cabinet for alleged non-performance who comes back. Oscar Fernandes who had it been relegated to the statistical ministry because he isn’t a minster who can take control of a ministry is brought back. Mallikarjun Kharge gets a price for losing out in the Karnataka chief ministership. So really nothing to enthuse in the cabinet but much in the party organization which will be carefully watched. Q: As there seems to be consensus the Cabinet reshuffle nothing to talk about really, has no great significance or implications. Your biggest takeaway from what we have seen happen as far as the party changes and the Cabinet reshuffle are concerned? Jagannathan: It is very clear that this is the Modi effect. The party realises that it has to have a political counter to growing image perceptions about Modi who is now very clearly the party's likely prime ministerial candidate. Q: How does this address that? How does a geriatric congregation address the Modi factor and the perception of Modi? Jagannathan: Their focus is on the party, it is not about the government. They have given up on the government. One, Chidambaram will bat for them and that is good enough. Doing anything else, anywhere else in the government will not make a difference. So, they are trying to put the best hands and the best faces in the party who will start countering. Modi is going to make a lot of political speeches so they need the party to be in good shape to respond to it, that is what the game is all about. I don't think it is anything about the government. The government has been written-off by the party. Q: Everyone talking about the fact that the one guy in government that everyone seems to be placing their bets on is Chidambaram, comes out, does a two-hour press conference, promises a bunch of reforms as early as the end of this month followed up by Anand Sharma over the weekend doing another press conference saying we will push with foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecom, FDI in defence so on and so forth. These are the slog overs, do you believe that this government is now got the courage to at least push some of that stuff through? Jain: I am glad you mentioned Anand Sharma and I am glad you talked about the fact that he wants FDI in telecom to be raised to 100 percent. I agree with what everybody is said so far, that the government seems to be of the view that one finance minister can bat for all of them, he is enough for the last five overs and we need to strengthen the party and that is fine. The problem with what Chidambaram said and what Anand Sharma said is that if there is one ministry which seems to be blocking almost everything today it is the industry ministry. It is the industry ministry which has put all manner of funny riders which have made sure that eight months after the government staked its life on getting multi-brand retail in, you don’t have a single multi-brand retail person in. It is the industry ministry which is opposing having FDI in Brownfield pharmaceutical. So, when Anand Sharma talks about the fact that we need to increase caps and we need to do these things, the biggest problem is that the government as a whole is not taking the decision that it needs to take. So, whether you get a Sis Ram Ola or whether you get Mallikarjun Kharge in, that is not the issue. The issue is that there are three or four burning matters before the Cabinet, one of them is gas pricing. Now that is not getting taken. There is a burning issue of fixing telecom, you haven’t done that yet.