So minister?

If a fire minister is a curiosity,so is a party like the Marxist Forward Bloc,which may have passed into oblivion,largely unnoticed,when West Bengal Fire Services Minister Pratim Chatterjees long tenure,someday,came to an end had it not been for the Park Street inferno in Kolkata last Tuesday. Wisdom may be Chatterjees phoenix rising from the embers of Stephen Court. But his professions of having learnt a lesson or two from the tragedy wouldnt save him from the judgment of those hapless mothers,fathers,brothers,sisters,fiancées and friends scavenging among charred bodies and ashes for their dear departed,if they could care about judging his callous arrogance now. He will have to face judgment,before a nation that watched Stephen Court burn,that is revolted at the image of the minister standing atop the smouldering remains,proclaiming to the world that he has learnt a lesson or two,as if he was about to yell Eureka! next.

To be fair,Chatterjee and his department alone are not to blame. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee himself,applauding the firemen,chastised the municipal corporation for authorising illegal constructions such as the two fatal floors added to Stephen Court in 1984. True. Stephen Court is an instance of the unreformed mess that Kolkata and many urban areas of India are. Yet why,despite being plush with funds,was the fire department so underprepared? And how could a metropolitan fire services keep necessary equipment so far from the city centre? As minister,Chatterjee wasnt expected to go to Stephen Court with a shovel,but he should have had a fire department that came good in crisis,in practice.

Pratimbabu is the newest face of the thoroughgoing civic wreck that Bengal became under Left rule. He is also testament to the state of the Left Front how a miniscule party of two MLAs could exert pressure and secure for its leader independent charge of a department logically put under the urban development ministry. Bhattacharjees government may have lost the will to govern,but he must ponder the pitfalls of a spoils system in awarding or creating ministries for coalition partners with little to do.