Notwithstanding her party’s stupendous win in the lok Sabha elections in which Trinamool Congress won 34 seats from Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banjerjee has effected what experts call a ‘punitive’ reshuffle in her Cabinet rewarding some Ministers while penalising yet others for the party’s poor performance in their areas.
Dramatist-cum-Education Minister Bratya Basu once a blue-eyed boy of the Chief Minister has been shifted to the less important Ministry of Tourism while another Minister Savitri Mitra has been made to wait without a Ministry. Her Department of Social Welfare has been given to Shashi Panja. A third Minister Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury has also been shifted out to a less important Food Processing Ministry.
Mitra and Chowdhury belong to Malda and had joined the Trinamool from the Congress in the recent past. The Chief Minister holds the infighting between these two leaders for the poor result of the Trinamool in Malda North and South where the BJP has come up in the second position after the Congress.
Anther Minister Subrato Saha has been divested of the Food and Civil Supplies portfolio and kept without any charge for his poor performance in Murshidabad from where the Trinamool could win no seats. While the Congress won two, the left won one seat from the district.
The Education Department has been given to former Industries Minister Partho Chatterjee reportedly on account of the Chief Minister’s dissatisfaction over the way he handled the controversy caused by the Teachers’ Eligibility Test scam that badly perforated her Government’s honesty veneer.
The Chief Minister is known to be disturbed by the drop in her party’s vote percentage regardless of the large-scale allegations of booth-capturing and rigging resorted to by her party goons in all constituencies. The Trinamool’s vote share has gone down to 39 per cent from 46 per cent in the 2011 Assembly elections.
Finance Minister Amit Mitra, however, got some acknowledgement from the Chief Minister even as she gave her the additional charge of IT Department. Mitra is already handling the Industry portfolio apart from the Finance Ministry.