After a hiatus of seven years, former minister and city mayor Sovan Chatterjee — once Mamata Banerjee’s trusted lieutenant — found rehabilitation in the ruling administration here as the chairperson of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority, replacing retired IAS officer Alapan Bandyopadhyay, chief adviser to the chief minister.
The order was issued a couple of days after the 61-year-old (who parted ways with Trinamool, joining the BJP for some time, when he was 53) met Mamata in north Bengal, weeks after he met her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
Sovan had quit the Trinamool in 2018 and joined the BJP, along with his “close associate” Baishaki Banerjee, the following year. They left the saffron camp after several “irreconcilable differences”, purportedly over the importance expected by Baishakhi but denied by the BJP, before the Assembly election, after it became clear that neither was being fielded for the polls by their new party.
The meeting with Abhishek — whose testy ties with Sovan as well as the current city mayor Firhad Hakim were once among the ruling camp’s worst-kept secrets — took place in the wake of the pre-Puja deluge in Calcutta that claimed around a dozen lives and wrecked vast swathes of the metropolis for days. The capabilities of Hakim, also the state’s urban development and municipal affairs minister, were put to question amid widespread public outrage.
Some in Trinamool wish to see this as an alarm bell for Hakim, as a message he should take seriously. Others pointed out that, besides being the tallest minority leader in the party, 66-year-old Hakim is still blindly trusted by Mamata. Despite many an attempt in recent years, including direct meetings with Mamata, Sovan was not allowed back into the ruling dispensation. That was before Friday.
“My first duty now is to protect the dignity of Mamatadi’s trust and confidence,” said a delighted Sovan on Friday evening.
“Calcutta is an old city, New Town is new, developing every day. I have to understand everything as soon as possible, to ensure I can play my role efficiently, in keeping with New Town’s needs. I have been in the municipal administration since my political childhood. I became a councillor, an MLA, a mayor, a minister. Every honour came to me suddenly. This, too, was no different. When Mamatadi gave me the responsibility, I will do my very best,” he said.