Former Union minister Babul Supriyo on Wednesday hit out at Narendra Modi for the first time since defecting to the Trinamul Congress on September 18 as he accused the Prime Minister of not having trust on people of Bengal.
“In (my) seven years of journey in Delhi, (I’ve) somewhere felt that the Prime Minister doesn’t trust Bengalis. Let alone a cabinet minister, there has not been a minister with independent charge from Bengal in the past seven years,” Supriyo said.
“I’m not talking about myself. (S.S) Ahluwaliaji is a senior member, he had come from Congress and even he wasn’t given an independent charge. Somewhere I felt that there is discrimination against the elected representatives from Bengal in the council of ministers,” he said, adding that he had joined Trinamul because he felt he would be able to work for Bengal under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Supriyo, who was elected as a first time MP in 2014, was inducted by Modi into his council of ministers as a junior minister. He was dropped from the council of ministers after a rejig this July.
Apart from Supriyo, 6 other BJP MPs from Bengal have been inducted into the Modi’s council of ministers in the last seven years. During his first tenure between 2014 and 2019, Modi made Surinder Singh Ahluwalia, the then Darjeeling MP, a junior minister.
After returning to power in 2019, Debasree Chaudhuri, the Raiganj MP was made as a junior minister for Women and Child Development. She was dropped along with Babul in the latest reshuffle.
Four other MPs from Bengal — Dr Subhash Sarkar, Santanu Thakur, Nishith
Pramanik and John Barla — were inducted into the expanded council as ministers of states.
BJP’s Barrackpore MP, a Trinamul turncoat, Arjun Singh took a dig at Supriyo by calling him a ‘traitor’.
“Traitors always look for newer excuses to betray. Babul Supriyo is one such traitor. He isn’t even ashamed that he was made a minister the day after he started politics and he is now accusing someone like our Prime Minister,” Singh said.