Gandhi appointed his fourteen-member cabinet. He said he would monitor their performance and would "fire ministers who do not come to the mark". From the Third Indira Gandhi ministry, he removed two powerful figures; Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Railway Minister A. B. A. Ghani Khan Choudhury. Mohsina Kidwai became the Minister of Railways; she was the only female figure in the cabinet. Former Home Minister PV Narasimha Rao was put in charge of defence. V. P. Singh, who was initially appointed as the Finance Minister, was given the Defence Ministry in 1987. During his tenure as prime minister, Gandhi frequently shuffled his cabinet ministers, drawing criticism from the magazine India Today, which called it a "wheel of confusion". The West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu said, "The Cabinet change reflects the instability of the Congress (I) Government at the Centre". Anti-defection law Gandhi's first action as prime minister was passing the anti-defection law in January 1985. According to this law, an elected Member of Parliament or legislative assembly could not join an opposition party until the next election. Historian Manish Telikicherla Chary calls it a measure of curbing corruption and bribery of ministers by switching parties so they could gain majority. Many such defections occurred during the 1980s as elected leaders of the Congress party joined opposition parties. 1985 Congress Sandesh Yatra Rajiv Gandhi had announced 'Sandesh Yatra' at the plenary session of AICC in Mumbai in 1985. The All India Congress Seva Dal ran it across the country. Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) and party leaders made four simultaneous trips from Mumbai, Kashmir, Kanyakumari and the Northeast. The yatra, which lasted for more than three months, concluded at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan. Shah Bano case In 1985, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of Muslim divorcee Shah Bano, declaring that her husband should give her alimony. Some Indian Muslims treated it as an encroachment upon Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Gandhi agreed to their demands. In 1986, the Parliament of India passed The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, which nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano case. The Act diluted the Supreme Court judgment and allowed maintenance payments to divorced women only during the period of Iddah, or until 90 days after the divorce, according to the provisions of Islamic law. This was in contrast to Section 125 of the