WB mantris retain chairs

KOLKATA: Veteran CPM leader and former chief minister Jyoti Basu told reporters here after a Left Front meeting on Sunday that they have decided to retain Asim Dasgupta as the finance minister and Subhash Chakraborty as the transport minister. The final ministerial candidate list would be finalised at another meeting soon.

The Left Front had on Friday announced that there would no major changes in the ministerial candidates from the previous ministry. The ministries allotted to the different allies of the Left Front would be same as the previous Left Front government and each ally would not poach into the existing ministry of the other.

It must be noted that it was mainly because of Basu’s insistence that Dasgupta and Chakraborty were allotted their old ministries, while a large section were in favour of reshuffling these two ministries.

Meanwhile sources from the CPM state committee told DNA that it has also been decided that Nirupam Sen would continue as the industry & commerce minister and Manab Mukherjee as the information technology minister. However, talks are on regarding allocation of additional departments to Mukherjee.

It is learnt that the much debated subject in the Sunday meeting revolved around who would be the education minister in the new government and how many ministers would be there in the education department.