Vowing Clean Government, Gandhi Names His Cabinet

After declaring Monday that he will preside over an “efficient and clean” government, newly elected Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi named a somewhat streamlined Cabinet with only a few new faces.

Basking in the afterglow of his overwhelming electoral victory here--leading the ruling Congress-I Party to a three-fourths majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament-- Gandhi went first to the Great Hall of the red sandstone Parliament building Monday morning. It was a triumphant procession.

As the nearly 400 newly elected members of Parliament applauded by slapping their hands and feet on the legislative benches, Gandhi, 40, pledged to “take India ahead.”

Legislators waited in line to garland him with good-luck marigolds and drape his shoulders with silken mantles. Addressing the assembly, which included movie actors, athletes and members of royal families brought into the party as candidates for the national election, Gandhi declared:

“Our politics should be clean, the development should be speedy and the fruits of development programs should reach the people.”

Later, at the Rashtrapati Bhawan presidential palace, once the home of the viceroy of India under British rule, Gandhi took the same oath of office, in English, as his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his mother, assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, took before him.

After eliminating the rank of deputy minister from his new government (“Actually, deputy ministers had no work,” the United News of India quoted him as saying), Gandhi presented 37 ministers, including only 14 Cabinet positions, not counting his own.

Five Cabinet members are new to this government, although four of the five served at ministerial rank under Indira Gandhi.

In trimming the Cabinet, Gandhi, who favors a business-management approach to government, kept for himself a large portfolio of ministerial-rank responsibilities--including the key post of minister of external affairs. The former airline pilot also kept civil aviation as one of his charges.

The biggest surprise of the new Cabinet was Gandhi’s dropping of Pranab Mukherjee, who as finance minister was the ranking Cabinet minister under Indira Gandhi. Under party rules for succession to the office of prime minister, in fact, Mukherjee was first in line for the premiership following Indira Gandhi’s Oct. 31 assassination.

But in the political uncertainty following the assassination, party leaders bypassed Mukherjee to name Rajiv Gandhi to the post so that order could be quickly established.

Comment Is Favorable

The new Cabinet received generally favorable comment from political analysts for English-language daily newspapers.

“It is a good mix of old and new,” said H.K. Dua of the Indian Express. “Nothing too exciting, but I wouldn’t call it a government of tailors either.”

Dua said Gandhi was probably being cautious in his choices because of upcoming state elections. “He had to strike a balance from all of the states so that no one state would be overrepresented.”

Beyond the external affairs post (the equivalent of the U.S. secretary of state), which Gandhi himself will handle, the three other top positions in the Cabinet--defense, home and finance--will be filled by old hands.

The former home minister under Gandhi and his mother, P.V. Narasimha Rao, simply switched positions with former Defense Minister S. B. Chavan. Narasimha Rao, who ran for Parliament from two constituencies to ensure his election, was given the additional responsibility of planning, which may indicate his favored position in the new government.

The new finance minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, is new to the Rajiv Gandhi government but was a respected Cabinet member under Indira Gandhi.

Among the second-tier ministers of state appointed by Gandhi were several significant additions, including former Ambassador to the United States K.R. Narayanan (planning) and veteran diplomat Natwar Singh (steel). The Oxford-educated Madhavrao Scindia--the son of a maharajah, who won favor in the party for his defeat of Congress-I nemesis and opposition leader A.B. Vajpayee--was named state minister of railways.

Named minister of state (power) was Arun Nehru, considered by many to be one of the most important counselors of the young prime minister.