Shantanu retains shipping; Sukanta is MoS edu, NE development in new govt
Times of India | 11 June 2024
Kolkata: Bongaon MP Shantanu Thakur retained the portfolio as a junior minister for ports, shipping and waterways in the third Modi-led NDA govt while Balurghat MP Sukanta Majumdar was made junior minister of education, and development of northeastern region. The announcement was made after the first Cabinet meeting on Monday evening.
Trinamool, while calling the new Cabinet a “timed-out Cabinet”, questioned BJP’s move of never appointing a minister of Cabinet rank from Bengal since it came to office in 2014.Bengal hasn’t had a Cabinet minister since then railway minister Mukul Roy, along with five junior ministers from TMC, walked out of the UPA-2 govt in 2012.
A professor of botany, Majumdar has long been associated with academics. “I will first meet the teachers sitting on dharna in Kolkata. The ED, CBI probes in school recruitment scams will continue. We will also look into allegations of supernumerary recruitments in schools,” he said on Monday. In the earlier NDA govt, Subhas Sarkar was the MoS for education.
During Thakur’s tenure as an MoS, a number of projects took off in Bengal, including the Rs 2,000-crore dredging work for the improvement of inland waterways navigability. The ministry also undertook modernisation of local gates, establishment of multi-modal terminals and implementation of roll-on/roll-off services to bolster river transport and infrastructure development in border areas.
TMC spokesperson Santanu Sen said: “The induction of only two BJP MPs from Bengal into the Union ministry, despite 12 of them emerging victorious, shows the party’s apathy towards the state.”