Karat coming,Cabinet shuffle likely

Karat will be in the city to address a party gathering to celebrate the birth anniversary of E M S Namboodiripad on Saturday. He will extend his trip to attend the state committee meeting.

Sources said state CPM secretary Biman Bose has been pressing for changes in the state Cabinet since early June,following the Opposition’s attack on the government for non-performance of some ministers.

“To speed up the government’s functioning,the party in its last state committee meeting had decided to remove some ministers and clip the wings of some others,” said a senior party leader,adding that any reshuffle in the Cabinet in the middle of its tenure might be difficult.

In its June-end state committee meeting,the party had decided that at least the ailing ministers should be replaced. For instance,Goutam Deb,the Housing Minister,and Sailen Sarkar,the Environment Minister,have not been attending office for the past three months due to illness. Moreover,a section of leaders feels that Nirupam Sen and Suryakanta Mishra are overburdened with several portfolios.

Sen holds three portfolios of commerce and industries,planning and development and public enterprises; while Mishra holds three major portfolios of health,panchayat and rural development for which the party had to face strong criticism from several quarters.

CPM reports Trinamool ministers to Centre for Lalgarh visit
NEW DELHI: Charging two central ministers belonging to Trinamool Congress with “inciting violence” in Lalgarh,the CPM today asked the Centre to explain why they were allowed to visit the place in West Bengal violating Home Ministry directives against such trips.

“At a time when joint operations to contain Maoist violence is going on,they visited the area on Tuesday,incited violence and provoked confrontation with security forces,thereby giving sustenance to Maoist violence and endangering the unity and integrity of the country,” CPM leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here. His party colleague Basudeb Acharia claimed the two ministers,Mukul Roy and Shishir Adhikari,addressed a public meeting “violating” Section 144 of the CrPC and “spoke against the presence of central forces in the area and the joint operations carried by them and the state police.” Maintaining that the Cabinet Committee on Security had decided to send central forces to Lalgarh,he asked,“How can ministers speak against a decision of the Cabinet? Isn’t it the collective responsibility of the ministers to go by these decisions?” Noting that the Home Ministry had earlier directed that no central minister should visit Lalgarh when anti-Maoist operations were on,Acharia and Yechury demanded that the Centre should clarify why the two ministers were allowed to visit the area and take “necessary action”. PTI