Hashmi among 4 Delhi ministers axed

new delhi: four of the six ministers in the sheila dikshit cabinet were shown the door on tuesday, a move which is expected to trigger a new round of dissidence in the delhi congress. after five days of hectic negotiations with the congress leadership, dikshit finally dropped transport minister pervez hashmi, power and industry minister narendra nath, social welfare minister krishna tirath and civil supplies minister yoganand shastri.a meeting with congress president sonia gandhi earlier in the day clinched the issue with dikshit and aicc general secretary in charge of delhi kamal nath agreeing on the names of haroon yusuf, ajay maken, deep chand bandhu and raj kumar chauhan for inclusion in the cabinet. finance minister mahinder singh saathi and health minister a k walia have been retained. while the portfolios of the new ministers have not been announced, the ministers are likely to be sworn in on thursday at raj nivas. dikshit has sent the names of the new ministers to the president for approval. dikshit also appointed patel nagar legislator ramakant goswami as her parliamentary secretary. goswami would replace rajouri garden mla ajay maken who will be inducted into the cabinet. after much delay, dikshit and nath had agreed to drop four ministers from the cabinet on monday night. the names of the ministers to be dropped were, however, decided on tuesday morning when the two leaders met sonia. sources said while there were differences between nath and dikshit on the choice of candidates and the number of ministers to be dropped, the two leaders finally settled for four names. all two-time mlas, the four new faces not only balance caste equations but also represent the various factions in the delhi congress. among the four new ministers, 37-year-old maken is the youngest and close associate of dikshit. haroon yusuf, who replaces hashmi as the minority face of the government, is essentially congress stalwart arjun singh's choice. in the outgoing council of ministers, singh was known to be yoganand shastri's political mentor. chauhan's induction is being seen as the victory of the sajjan kumar camp, which has influence on outer delhi. interestingly, both maken and yusuf had followed arjun singh and left the congress to join congress (tiwari). they returned when sonia took over as congress president in 1998. raj kumar chauhan, who represents the backward community and serves as a replacement for krishna tirath, belongs to the sajjan kumar faction. a legislator from mongolpuri, chuahan is also the only minister representing outer delhi. the name of deep chand bandhu, who would represent the jat community in the cabinet, was proposed by former delhi mp jagdish tytler. tytler, however, had also been pushing the name of deputy speaker in delhi assembly kiran chaudhury.