When Surjeet’s nominees became Governor and Union Minister

Harkishen Singh Surjeet

Now that trolling of Kerala BJP President Kummanam Rajasekharan who has been named Governor of Mizoram has subsided, here is a recall of how the CPI(M) General Secretary’s nominees became Governor and Union Minister without the party being in power at the Centre.

After the defeat of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections of 1996 and the failure of BJP leader A B Vajpayee to muster the numbers needed to form a government, CPI(M) General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet emerged as a key player at the national level. As is well known,  the Third Front parties were ready to have Jyoti Basu as the Prime Minister but the CPI(M) Politburo turned down the suggestion. Thereafter Surjeet brought about a consensus, first in favour of H D Deve Gowda, who was PM for about a year, and then in favour of I K Gujral, who also occupied the chair for about a year.

Among the Governors appointed by the Deve Gowda government was Justice S S Kang (Picture on the left) . A former Judge of Punjab High Court and Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, he was serving as a member of the National Human Rights Commission when Surjeet recommended his name for the [ost of Governor of Kerala.

Justice Kang discharged his duties as Governor fairly and did not attract any charge of impropriety.

When I.K. Gujral formed his Cabinet, he included in it Balwant Singh Ramoowalia (Picture on left), a member of the Rajya Sabha from UP, as Minister for Social Welfare.

Ramoowalia did not belong to any party at that time. He owed his place in the Cabinet to Surjeet.

Ramoowalia began his colourful career as General Secretary of the Students Federation of India in the 1960s. He later went over to the All India Sikh Students Federation and became its President. Still later he became General Secretary of the Akali Dal.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Punjab on the Akali Dal ticket twice. Thereafter he quit Akali Dal and got elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh as an Independent. That was when Surjeet got him into the Union Cabinet.

After the ministerial days Ramoowalia started his own party, named Lok Bhalai Party. It later merged in Akali Dal (Badal).

In 2015 Ramoowalia joined the Samajwadi Party  and became a cabinet minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government in UP.

Although  Ramoowalia was an Independent member of the Rajya Sabha when he became a minister in Gujral’s Cabinet, Wikipedia lists him as a CPI(M) member.. see below.

 The cabinet ministers in I. K. Gujral ministry were as follows.^[1]

Portfolio	Minister		office Took	office Left	Party
Prime Minister		I. K. Gujral	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	Janata Dal
Minister of Home Affairs		Indrajit Gupta	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	CPI
Minister of Finance		P. Chidambaram	1 May 1997	19 March 1998	TMC
Minister of Defence		Mulayam Singh Yadav[2]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	SP
Minister of Railways		Ram Vilas Paswan[3]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	Janata Dal
Minister of Communications		Beni Prasad Verma[4]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	SP
Minister of Agriculture		Chaturanan Mishra[5]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	CPI
Minister of Industry		Murasoli Maran[6]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	DMK
Minister of Civil Aviation		C. M. Ibrahim[7]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	Janata Dal
Minister of Textiles		R. L. Jalappa[8]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	Janata Dal
Minister of Social Welfare		Balwant Singh Ramoowalia[9]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	CPI(M)
Minister of Mines		Birendra Prasad Baishya[10]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	AGP
Minister of Rural Areas		Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu[11]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	TDP
Minister of Forests and Environment		Saifuddin Soz[12]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	JKN
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs		Srikant Kumar Jena[13]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	Janata Dal
Minister of Surface Transpor		T. G. Venkatraman[14]	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	DMK