Ministers are upset with the way the Covid crisis and aftermath of cyclone Amphan have been handled.
New Delhi: Ahead of the May 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) seems to be in difficult position with several of her Cabinet ministers expressing displeasure with the way the Bengal government has been handling the Covid-19 crisis and the aftermath of cyclone Amphan that rocked the state in May this year.
According to highly placed sources within the TMC, at least three of Mamata Banerjee’s Cabinet ministers have shown discontent with the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government and have expressed their unhappiness directly with the Chief Minister.
One of the Cabinet ministers who openly went on record to criticise the TMC-led Kolkata Municipal Corporation includes Bengal’s Consumer Affairs Minister Sadhan Pande. He had launched a scathing attack on Firad Hakim, former mayor and close aide of Mamata Banerjee, for failing to address the problem of electricity and water soon after cyclone Amphan. The capital city of Kolkata had been reeling under an unprecedented power outage and shortage of water during that time, leading to widespread protests. Since then, Pande had been sent show cause notice from the party and has been cautioned not to speak directly against the party in public platform.
Sources close to Pande have hinted that he has been unhappy with the way the party has dealt with him for expressing his honest views and that he feels that the party has become a place where dissent won’t be tolerated.
Suvendu Adhikari, another Cabinet minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, has also expressed his discontent with the way “corruption” has marred the distribution of relief material post cyclone Amphan in Bengal, sources in the TMC told this correspondent. “There has been widespread corruption in relief material distribution. The people of Bengal are unhappy and Suvendu Adhikari had informed the Chief Minister about this, but there has not been any action on it. He is unhappy because the people there are suffering and the party is involved in looting poor man’s relief material,” a TMC leader close to Suvendu Adhikari told this correspondent. Sources also said that Adhikari, who is the Transport minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, had recently stopped working in the ministry and had not been taking much interest even in the party affairs in his district.
This, at a time when Bengal is facing one of the biggest transport crisis following the lifting of lockdown when hundreds of private bus owners running public transport fleet refused to resume their services and had been holding protests against the Bengal government, while office goers were seen either cycling to work or stuffed into government buses, throwing the norms of social distancing out of the window.
Adhikari is also considered to be close to Mamata Banerjee. Adhikari is also believed to be having a strong presence in Purba Midnapore district, having to its credit the de-throwing ofthe CPM strongman Lakshman Seth in the area.
Subrata Mukherjee, another close aide of Mamata Banerjee and Cabinet Minister, also seems to be upset with the intra-party politics of TMC and “widespread corruption”.
Sources aware of the development said that Mukherjee has spoken out during the Amphan crisis in the state to the party leadership.
Even BJP state president Dilip Ghosh had praised Mukherjee and had said, “If Subrata Mukherjee had been the mayor of Kolkata, he would have handled the Amphan crisis better.”
However, it is still not clear if these leaders would be joining the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections, but sources in the BJP told The Sunday Guardian that some of the Cabinet ministers from the Trinamool Congress are in touch with the BJP and that the party is taking note of all such requests.
A senior BJP functionary said, “There are several TMC leaders, including Cabinet ministers, who are willing to join the BJP. We will assess each and every request that is coming our way and only after analysing that their entry would not hurt the BJP, we would consider inducting them into the party.”
The Sunday Guardian reached out to all the three Cabinet ministers seeking a reaction. While Sadhan Pande rubbished the claims of him joining the BJP, the others did not reply till the time of going to press.