Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took over environment ministry as Manas Bhunia shunted after only 10 months in the ministry

Manas Bhunia, who became environment minister of West Bengal about 10 months back, has lost the portfolio today through a notification issued by chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi on Thursday.

As per the notification, a copy of which is with The Plurals, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will take over the charge of the environment ministry. However Bhunia will continue to be the minister of water Resources Investigation and Development; a department he has been leading before becoming environment minister as well.

The change of guard in the state environment ministry is the 7 th one since Trinamool Congress came into power in 2011; and 6 th in the last 8 years. Apart from Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, who was the first environment minister in Trinamul tenure, none of the subsequent environment ministers could complete the full tenure. The list includes Sovan Chatterjee, Subhendu Adhikari, Soumen Mahapatra, Ratna De Nag apart from Bhuniya.

Several theories are in the air about the sudden change of guard in the environment ministry; foremost among them the recent series of blasts in a number of illegal firework units across the state. Incidentally the Egra blast caused several deaths; and had put Chief Minister and the ruling Trinamool in acute discomfiture just ahead of rural polls. Incidentally CM Banerjee said that she was not aware of such illegal units running in the state; and had to publicly apologize for the incident. Bhunia’s short tenure was also marked by criticism on account of air pollution; as the critical air pollutants continued to increase in Kolkata and rest of state once the Covid restrictions were taken off.

Another reason being referred to is Bhunia’s public stricture to senior state pollution control board and environment department officials during world environment day programme on June 5 for not keeping CM Banerjee’s photograph in the background used for the event during the official programme organized by PCB. While none wanted to be quoted; but clearly Bhunia’s sharp condemnation in public caused several heartburns within the green department; and feeling was unofficially shared with the chief minister office.

“It was not appropriate, the event was a celebration of an international day, and there has been no precedent of keeping CM photographs in the background. Still the minister could have shared his feeling with us in private rather than making the outburst in the public, particularly with so many school children in attendance” said a senior official.

While Bhunia was not available to talk, sources close to Bhunia however sought to deny that the erstwhile environment minister has been removed for his non performance on fireworks and other factors.

“On the contrary, Bhunia, as environment minister, took initiatives to clear up the long term complications with firework units taking other departments on board,” claimed one. He also claimed that Bhunia has been relieved from the green ministry in view of his new responsibility to lead the newly set up Paschim banga Rajya Sarkari Karmachari Federation; which is a “mammoth task”.

“Now this has become a trend; change of environment minister around June 5, world environment day. This happened for Sovan Chatterjee and Suvendu Adhikari and even Ratna De Nag was replaced within three months of world environment day; and now Bhunia suffered the same fate” said Naba Dutta of Sabuj Mancha.

“Bhunia did little in addressing the key environmental issues of the state. The environment lobby of the state, including Sabuj Mancha, had strongly criticized the failure of state administration including environment ministry in containing illegal firework units; and I believe that has played a role (in the shift)” added the green activist.

“Including chief minister who took over the environment ministry on Thursday, 7 environment ministers took charge during the Trinamul era; 6 in the last 7 to 8 years. Hence, most could not complete their tenure and implement whatever the plans they had … this can also be seen as a reflection of their non performance,” observed Biswajit Mukherjee, a former chief law officer of state environment department and state PCB.

Environment activist Subhas Datta opined that “Manas Bhuniya was trying to streamline the environment department of the state, and such approach might not have been liked by the powers that be” and added that “such rapid changes are not desirable”.

“If you look closely you will find that most of the environment ministers during the current regime were not full time ones; and actually were given additional responsibility with other departments; which underlines the lack of political priority for the department,” added Datta.

“How you can say this with the chief minister has now taken over” countered an environment department official.

However, according to sources, the chief minister may hand over the responsibility to a new person soon with the responsibility of running the environment ministry.