In a major Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee summarily dropped two Ministers and took away important portfolios from senior Ministers.
The reshuffle comes three weeks after the Trinamool Congress’s dismal performance in the tribal districts in the recent rural polls. The Chief Minister’s nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee was in charge of the tribal districts.
James Kujur who held the Tribal Development portfolio and Backward Classes Welfare Minister Churamani Mahato have been dropped from the Cabinet. The Chief Minister herself has taken over the Tribal Development Ministry and Chandrima Bhattacharya has been made Minister of State (MoS). Mr. Bhattacharya is junior Minister in the Health Department.
Backward Classes Welfare has been handed over to erstwhile Irrigation Minister Rajib Banerjee. Irrigation portfolio has now been given to Soumen Kumar Mahapatra. Minister without portfolio Abani Mohan Joardar was dropped on Tuesday. Subrata Mukherjee, senior Ministers in the TMC government, was relieved of the portfolio of Public Health Engineering and it was handed to Moloy Ghatak, a key TMC leader of Asansol.