West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will carry out a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, amid the party facing heat over the arrest of now suspended minister Partha Chatterjee over a schools jobs case. Mamata had announced her plans for a rejig on Monday. The rejig exercise is expected to be one of the biggest ever since the party came to power in the state in 2011. This will also be the first reshuffle since the TMC returned to power for the third consecutive term last year.
Here’s what to expect:
1)Mamata had said that four-five new faces would be inducted into the new cabinet. “We will reshuffle the cabinet on Wednesday, there will be four-five new faces,” she had said at a press briefing. Among other things, some portfolios might also be reshuffled among the existing cabinet ministers.
2) A senior TMC MLA was quoted as saying by news agency PTI: “Never before have been plans to induct four-five new faces and drop a similar number from the cabinet. So, this is likely to be one of the biggest reshuffles since our party came to power in the state.”
“In the last 11 years, there have been very few instances of a cabinet reshuffle, and those too were minor ones. This time though, the situation is different.”
3) Some of the names doing the rounds for induction into the cabinet are Babul Supriyo, Tapas Ray, Partha Bhowmick, Snehasis Chakraborty and Udayan Guha, PTI cited TMC sources as saying.
4) Meanwhile, Partha Chatterjee, who has been relieved of ministerial duties, was in charge of five key departments including industry, commerce and enterprises and parliamentary affairs.
5) The PTI report quoting a party leader further stated that MoS in education department, Paresh Adhikary, whose name had also cropped up in the school jobs scam, is likely to face the axe.
7) Minister Saumen Mahapatra, who has been assigned organisational responsibilities in Purba Medinipur district, is also likely to be relieved of his ministerial duties, the report added.
(With PTI inputs)
