New Delhi:
Ajit Singh is waiting to be sworn in as the newest member of the Union Cabinet. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief is tipped to take over the Civil Aviation portfolio, but is yet to receive official confirmation.
On Monday, Ajit Singh's party joined the ruling-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre. The alliance came about with an eye on the crucial Uttar Pradesh elections due in a few months. Ajit Singh is a local political satrap with a significant base the western part of the state.
Mr Singh handed over a letter of support from his party to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi yesterday and there were reports that he would be sworn into the Union Cabinet on December 14, Wednesday. He also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday.
The RLD chief's son, Jayant Chaudhary, however, said today that the party was yet to receive a formal communication about the swearing-in ceremony. He declined to confirm if Mr Singh was being given the Civil Aviation portfolio.
Sources also said that Mr Singh's party had not received an invitation to attend this evening's meeting of the UPA either.
With the RLD's five MPs in the Lok Sabha, the ruling UPA coalition's strength in the House has gone up from the borderline 272 to 277 MPs.
The RLD is now expected to contest 45 of the 403 seats in the 2012 polls for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in alliance with the Congress. Most of these seats are in the party's traditional stronghold - the agricultural belt of western Uttar Pradesh.
The alliance is being seen as significant given the sustained bid by the Congress, particularly its general secretary and youth leader Rahul Gandhi, to retrieve lost ground in the state where assembly elections due early next year.
This will be the fourth time that Mr Singh will be sworn in as a member of the Union Cabinet.
The 72-year-old Mr Singh has had one earlier association with the Congress at the Centre, as the Union Food Minister in 1995-96 when P V Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister.
He was part of the United Front government headed by VP Singh and was the Union Industries Minister in 1991-1992. He was the Union Agriculture Minister between 2001 and 2004 after he joined the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee.