West Bengal cabinet reshuffle today; who will REPLACE WBSSC scam-accused Partha Chatterjee?

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will effect a reshuffle of her cabinet on Wednesday, which is likely to be one of the biggest since the party came to power in the state in 2011. The cabinet reshuffle, the first since the TMC returned to power for the third consecutive term last year, comes amid the party facing the heat over the arrest of senior minister Partha Chatterjee by the ED over the school jobs scam.

Banerjee had on Monday carried out a major overhaul in her party and announced that a cabinet reshuffle will take place on Wednesday. She had said that four-five new faces would be inducted into the new cabinet, while a similar number of members of the present cabinet would be utilised for party work. Some portfolios might also be reshuffled among the existing cabinet ministers.

"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. "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," a senior TMC MLA said.

Who are the frontrunners for ministerial berths?

Babul Supriyo, Tapas Ray, Partha Bhowmick, Snehasis Chakraborty and Udayan Guha are some of the names that are doing the rounds for induction into the cabinet, TMC sources said. Supriyo, a former Union minister and BJP MP who quit the saffron party and joined the TMC after being dropped from the Union cabinet last year, is presently a TMC MLA from the Ballygunge assembly constituency in Kolkata. 

Ray, a former minister of state for parliamentary affairs, has been with the TMC since its formation in 1998. He was made the MoS, parliamentary affairs after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but was not inducted into the cabinet after TMC came to power for the third consecutive term last year. Ray was relieved of his organisational responsibilities in Kolkata North organisational district.

Bhowmick and Chakraborty, considered close to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in the party circles, have been relieved of their organisational responsibilities in North 24 Parganas and Hooghly districts respectively.

Guha, a former Forward Bloc leader who had joined TMC after the 2016 assembly polls, is a frontrunner for induction into the cabinet from north Bengal. Son of former Left Front minister Kamal Guha, he is presently one of the tallest TMC leaders in Cooch Behar district.

Partha Chatterjee, who has been relieved of ministerial duties, was in charge of five key departments including industry, commerce and enterprises and parliamentary affairs. For a brief period, Banerjee supervised the panchayat and PHE departments as well as consumer affairs and self-help group and self-employment departments following the death of in-charge ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Sadhan Pandey respectively. At present, these departments are being held by other ministers.

Meanwhile, a party leader said that MoS in the education department, Paresh Adhikary, whose name had also cropped up in the school jobs scam, is likely to face the axe. Minister Saumen Mahapatra, who has been assigned organisational responsibilities in Purba Medinipur district, is also likely to be relieved of his ministerial duties. The TMC underwent a major organisational overhaul on Monday as the leadership of 16 out of the 35 organisational districts was changed.

The imprint of Abhishek Banerjee was evident in the reshuffle in which several "non-performers" were axed, and some were relieved of organisational duties, paving their way for ministerial berths.