See who all are complaining of raw deal: Southern states, West Bengal

Has the new Narendra Modi dispensation given some states, especially those in south, a raw deal in ministerial berth allocations? 

So believe a section of parties. Not just Opposition leaders in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, even BJP’s own state unit in West Bengal in east is complaining, they point out.

Karnataka has been given three berths in addition to Finance portfolio for Nirmala Sitharaman, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from there, while one minister each hail from Kerala and Telangana.

Tamil Nadu, which boasted of as many as nine ministers in the UPA-II government in 2009, did not get any representation in Modi 2.0 govt.

DMK chief M K Stalin said PM Modi has “slighted” Tamil Nadu by not appointing anyone from the state in the cabinet, since he was “angered” that people did not elect even a single MP from his party.

Congress’s TN president KS Alagiri said the exclusion could be only construed as boycott of not only AIADMK but Tamil Nadu as well. He said Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar have no links to Tamils and could not be regarded as representatives of TN.

Similar was the perception about representation of And-hra Pradesh too.  “Seeing the Modi Cabinet, it appeared as if the Centre did not have any connection with Andhra,” said Andhra-based political commentator P Naveen.

In Telangana, where BJP had won four LS seats, many rue that lone minister G Kishan Reddy was not even given independent charge, leave alone a Cabinet rank.

In Kerala, where BJP drew a blank, V Muraleedharan, a former state party chief, has been made MoS, External Affairs. During the tenure of UPA II, there were eight ministers from Kerala. 

In Bengal, BJP’s own state chief Dilip Ghosh is peeved  the ‘underrepresentation’, that he raised the issue with the party’s senior leaders.

“Earlier Bengal had two MPs and both were ministers (of state). This time there are 18 MPs and yet, the number of ministers (of state) remained at two. I have raised the issue with Ramlal ji, party’s general secretary in charge of organisation,” Ghosh had said.

(With inputs from PTI)