With the scrapping of the ambitious IT project in Rajarhat, rumours are ripe in political circles that IT Minister Debesh Das may have to leave his post, like his predecessor Manabendra Mukherjee, who was forced by CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to resign in 2006.

Debesh Das, a professor of computer science in Jadavpur University, was roped in by the CM to head Bengal’s IT department, but in the middle of the land controversy Das struggles to keep him afloat.

Party sources claim Das is ‘very loyal to the party’ and will not quit like another professor, Shankar Sen, who had resigned from the post of power minister without consulting party bosses at Alimuddin Street headquarters in 1997 following rift with the then CM Jyoti Basu.

Not a party loyalist like Das, Sen was head of the department of electrical engineering at Jadavpur University and was appointed the power minister in 1991 when the state was facing a severe power crisis. But as the rift between Basu and Sen widened, he openly opposed the government in a court case between the government and a private company. Das, on the other hand, is keen to put Bengal on the IT map. “The future of IT in our state is a big rasogolla,” Das had reportedly told his party bosses on the day he announced scrapping of the project. Das left his teaching profession in 2006. A popular teacher, Das always insists, “I am committed to my students, even as a minister.”

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