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Yasmin at Writers’ on Friday. (Amit Datta)
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Calcutta, Feb. 24: Sabina Yasmin, the minister of state for labour, today said she was “hurt” at not being invited to a programme of the ministry tomorrow and added that she had “no work”, a complaint that junior ministers both at the Centre and in the state often make.
Sabina, the Congress MLA from Malda’s Mothabari, told reporters at her Writers’ chamber. “I was not even told about the programme at Salt Lake even though I am the minister of state for labour, let alone getting an invitation. This treatment hurts me. My name is also not on the invitation card.”
She said it was “unfortunate” that the cabinet minister who heads the department, Trinamul’s Purnendu Bose, also did not inform her. “I met Bose at a meeting of the labour welfare board this morning but he did not even bother to tell me about the programme. I came to know about it from roadside hoardings and friends in the media,” Sabina said.
“Even the basic courtesy was not extended to me. To be honest, I am only a minister by name. I have no work,” she added.
Several junior ministers from the Trinamul Congress and the DMK in Delhi also face such a predicament often, a Trinamul MP said. “Junior ministers do not have any work, so they get no importance and are ignored. Take the case of our ministers of state at the Centre. We have six junior ministers at the Centre but they have no work. This is why they spend most of their time in Bengal,” he said.
Another Trinamul leader said ministers of state were “redundant”. “These posts have been created because of the compulsions of politics and the need to accommodate certain people in the ministry. Under these circumstances, how can the government find any work for them? All the work is done by the cabinet ministers.”
He said the problem was more acute in Bengal because of the “frequent squabbles” between allies Trinamul and Congress.
“A Trinamul cabinet minister can be unfair to his junior minister from the Congress. That is a possibility. So besides the fact that the post of minister of state is redundant, the Congress-Trinamul friction may also lead to basic courtesies not being extended. This has happened in Sabina’s case,” the Trinamul leader said.
A large country like the US is run by only a handful of ministers, he said. “This leads to greater efficiency.”
Sultan Ahmed, the Trinamul junior minister for tourism at the Centre, spoke of being without work in Delhi. “We have a chamber in Delhi, that’s all. I have never been told about any key decision of my department and I really do not have any work,” Ahmed said.
Sabina said she had been initially asked by Bose to look after the welfare of the 20 lakh bidi workers in Bengal. “But two months ago, Bose told me that he would supervise all matters concerning bidi workers. So I am left with no work.”
Asked if she would quit the ministry like party colleague Manoj Chakraborty, she said: “Why should I? Trinamul cannot alone claim the credit for the resounding victory in last year’s Assembly polls.”
She said she had told Bose verbally and in writing that she felt “humiliated” at not being invited to the programme. “I am planning to write to the chief minister about the raw deal meted out to me by my boss.”
Bose refused comment, merely saying: “This is between me and my junior colleague and so I shall not speak about it to the media,” he said.
Chakraborty, the then junior parliamentary affairs minister, had quit last month after a cabinet shuffle left him with reduced powers.
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