Malda MP ‘gets call’ from Delhi

Reshuffle Few more Cong MPs from state may make it to Manmohan cabinet.

One Congress MP from West Bengal who is almost certain to find a berth in the Union Council of ministers, which is set for a Sunday reshuffle, is Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury — the MP from Malda who is the brother of former Union minister ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury.

"He got a call from the Cabinet Secretary on Friday asking him to be present in Delhi on Sunday. We have heard that the swearing-in ceremony will take place on that day at 11.30 am," an aide to Khan told The Indian Express.

Till late Friday night, neither Congress MP from Behrampore Adhir Choudhury nor Rajya Sabha member Pradip Bhattacharya — considered strong contenders for the cabinet berths — received any call from Delhi to be present there.

"I don't know anything till now,'' Pradip Bhattacharya told The Indian Express. Adhir Choudhury too denied having received any call from Delhi. The other contender for a ministerial berth is Deepa Dasmunsi, the MP from Raiganj and wife of former Union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.

Another theory doing the rounds is that the Congress high command may anoint Adhir Choudhury, better known as bęte noire of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, with the post of state Congress president. "The Congress will have to take on the Trinamool Congress head-on in the coming panchayat elections and in order to provide the necessary sting to the Congress attack, Adhir should be placed at the helm of the state Congress affairs,'' a senior Congress leader said.

In a jolt to the Congress, Krishnendu Nanrayan Choudhury, the Congress MLA from Ingrejbazaar in Malda district has decided to join the Trinamool Congress. "I am disgusted with the way Congress is going on in the district. They are not with the people, they have become corrupt,'' Choudhury said. Incidentally, the MLA had left the Trinamool in 2006 to join the Congress.

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