Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's plan to reshuffle the Union Cabinet s facing a roadblock in the form of two ministers who refuse to take up party assignments in their respective states, Bharatiya Janata Party sources said on Friday.

Uma Bharti and Vasundhararaje are unwilling to head the BJP's units in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively, they said. Elections are due in the two states in November.

"I can deftly handle both responsibilities," Vasundhararaje insists.

BJP sources told rediff.com that Vasundhararaje's personal equations with Vajpayee and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders, including former Rajasthan party chief [and now Vice-President] Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, is helping her stave off critics.

Consequently, BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was constrained to issue a clarification that the party's stand on the one-man, one-post principle was a convention rather than the rule.

Bharti has also expressed her inability to go to Madhya Pradesh.

Perhaps for their benefit, BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday made a statement that indiscipline would be punished.

But that hasn't discouraged aspirants for ministerial berths in the National Democratic Alliance government, as was evident at the party headquarters in Delhi.

The rest of the problems relate to allotment of portfolios.

Film star Shatrughan Sinha's handling of the health ministry has invited remarks that he would be better off in the film industry.

Also, with the CBI reportedly giving Sinha's predecessor Dr C P Thakur a clean chit in a case of alleged corruption, he believed to be keen to get back into the Union Cabinet.

BJP members say Sinha now is eyeing the civil aviation portfolio, being handled by Syed Shahnawaz Hussain. Although perceived as the 'Muslim face' of the BJP, partymen say Hussain's performance has been far from satisfactory.

However, Sinha has competition in former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah.

While the prime minister wants to induct Dr Abdullah in his Cabinet, he is yet to think of a suitable for the National Conference leader.

The Trinamool Congress too is hopeful of a berth. Party chief Mamata Banerjee and her senior party colleague and Lok Sabha member from East Calcutta Sudip Bandopadhyaya are the contenders.

A BJP MP from Jharkhand said that party veteran and former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel is a 'certainty'.

Despite initial hostility to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, he bowed to the high command's wishes and worked for the party's electoral victory in the assembly elections held in December last year.

Prime Minister Vajpayee is believed to be grappling with these problems.