Another Cabinet change. Another farce. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could have done without it, especially on the eve of elections. Not only the timing, everything was wrong about the exercise. Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress is back-this time without a portfolio and she is still sulking. The other one who has returned home is Gingee Ramachandran of the MDMK. As ministers they add nothing to Team Vajpayee. Banerjee is a permanent embarrassment, someone who thinks bargaining is the primary responsibility of a coalition partner. In the latest reshuffle, she is a minister without portfolio, as if no ministry is big enough for her, as if she is too big and talented to be confined to just one department. Ramachandran left the Cabinet a few months ago after the arrest of his personal assistant in a bribery case. He had no other choice then. His continuance in the Government could not have been morally justified. The situation hasn't changed. Strangely, the prime minister does not think so. A brief exile seems to have made Ramachandran clean and acceptable again. Managing the coalition doesn't mean the total abdication of principles.

Certainly not when elections are round the corner. Is Vajpayee, who has introduced a new coalition dharma in Indian politics, losing the grip? Is he getting vulnerable to pressure? True, as the leader of a coalition government, Vajpayee cannot afford to be politically inexpedient. And he has already proved to be a master in managing internal contradictions. Still, the latest reshuffle defies logic. The BJP in power should not look so desperate on the eve of elections. Rather, this is the perfect time to be a bit more creative. The BJP may have ceased to be a party with a difference-partly due to the character of its partners-and it may be over-dependent on the charisma and popularity of one man. This is the time to be "different" again, to engage with ideas. It should be confident enough to face the people as a party that won't tarnish its own image for maintaining power. Even a cabinet reshuffle can be a move in that direction for a change in the ministry can bring in credibility and integrity, and it can be a pointer to how much the Government is committed to good performance. Not a reshuffle like this one, which serves the interests of not India but two individuals, and not so honourable ones either.

BODYLINE: RAVI SHANKAR