MoS Tourism opposes Shankersinh Vaghela’s appointment as ITDC Chairman with Cabinet Minister status, writes letter to PM

New Delhi, 7 June 2012

Seems Shankersinh Vaghela’s rehabilitation has not gone well with the ally of Congress led UPA.

Key UPA ally Trinamool Congress(TMC) has opposed the appointment of Vaghela as the Chairman of the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) with the rank of a Cabinet minister.

TMC leader and minister of state for Tourism Sultan Ahmed has sent a letter to Prime Minister on Tuesday expressing his reservations against the appointment of Vaghela.

“It is a contradictory situation. On one hand, the government has announced austerity measures and on the other, it has created a Cabinet post. When there is already a Cabinet Minister for Tourism Ministry (Subodh Kant Sahay) and MoS(Sultan Ahmed), where is the need for another one? The matter was not even discussed nor did the government bother to inform me about the appointment. There has never been any political appointment in the ITDC top post and it is the first time that ITDC will be headed by a political person,” Sultan Ahmed said in his letter to the Prime Minister.

ITDC, a PSU under the Tourism Ministry was in past always headed by IAS officers, but the Appointment Committee of Cabinet(ACC) approved the appointment of Vaghela as its part-time Chairman with a Cabinet rank on May 31.Vaghela, a Congress politician is likely to assume charge on June 11.

Background

In UPA-1 Vaghela was a Textile minister with Cabinet rank, but in 2009 he lost Lok Sabha election from Godhra in Gujarat, and therefore failed to become minister in UPA-2. After sitting silently in Gandhinagar for some time, he tried his luck for Rajya Sabha opportunity. When he was not nominated for Rajya Sabha, he started flirting with Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) and also held meetings with the leaders of NCP in a bid to join it. However at some point of time he was convinced by Congress party to stay in. Later he was made the Gujarat assembly election’s campaign committee head of Gujarat Congress. However Vaghela was eying some post with Cabinet ministry status (red beacon car, staff, allowances etc). Though the post of ITDC Chairman was selected for his rehabilitation few months back, the issue of whether to give Cabinet minister status to this post or not was pending in centre. Finally, ahead of the assembly poll in Gujarat the centre decided in his favor and gave away him the new post with Cabinet minister status. The post Vaghela is given is not important one for him, but the status attached to it is important to him.