Srikant Jena

Bhubaneswar, July 14: Shafted by the Prime Minister, who denied him the cabinet rank during the recent ministry rejig, minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena continues to sulk.

His less than happy mood was evident from the fact that he chose to be in the state today even though the first meeting of Manmohan Singh’s brand new council of ministers was scheduled to take place in New Delhi.

Though the meeting was cancelled at the last hour as the Prime Minister flew to Mumbai to review the situation in the wake of yesterday’s serial blasts in the country’s commercial capital, the significance of Jena’s absence in New Delhi was not lost on anybody.

Tongues wagged in the Congress circles here as Jena, the lone representative from Orissa in the Union council of ministers, was seen sharing the dais with AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi in Bhubaneswar.

However, wary as ever, senior Congressmen chose not to air their views in public. Gandhi himself chose not to comment on the rejig effected by the Prime Minister.

“This is his prerogative. It is his decision who to include, who not to. I should not interfere in this,” said the Congress general secretary.

However, to the surprise of most Congressmen, former chief minister Hemanand Biswal refused to be mealy mouthed and vented his frustration at the way Orissa was short shrifted quite openly.

“Like Orissa, Karnataka also has six Congress MPs and all of them have become ministers. So the people of Orissa, especially the tribals, are feeling let down,” said Biswal, a tribal veteran from the western part of the state.

Biswal, himself an aspirant for the ministerial berth, appeared to be particularly aggrieved as no one from western Orissa had been given a chance by the Prime Minister.

“Five of us have won from western Orissa where people had reposed their faith in the party with great hopes. Hence, the people of this region are feeling frustrated,” said the MP from Sundergarh.

Orissa Congressmen in general have been disappointed by the Prime Minister’s ministry rejig as it neither resulted in the inclusion of any new faces from the state nor did the much expected elevation of Srikant Jena from minister of state to the cabinet rank take place.

The elevation of Jena, who was a cabinet minister in the I.K. Gujral and H.D. Deve Gowda ministries, was the least that the state had expected from Tuesday’s exercise.