Even before he could start his innings as minister of state for railways in full steam, E Ahamed has to concentrate to placate the nerves of his senior minister — the mercurial Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee, the chief of the Trinamool Congress, has already expressed her displeasure to the top Congress leadership for making Ahamed her deputy. The reason: Ahamed’s party had fielded candidates against Trinamool Congress, including Banerjee’s own seat — Kolkata South.
So, Ahamed, the national president of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), has now sought explanations from his West Bengal unit president Shahim Shah Jahangir on why he had put candidates against the Trinamool Congress in Bengal, almost two months after the decision was taken.
“I was on a tour to Umrah. He (Jahangir) didn’t consult the central leadership and decided on his own. So, I have asked him to tell us why he did that,” 75-year-old Ahamed told Business Standard today. Jahangir has also been summoned to Delhi and report to the party’s central leaders.
Banerjee has been given two ministers of state — Ahamed and Congressman K H Muniyappa — in the second phase of the swearing-in of Manmohan Singh’s council of ministers.
Knowing fully well how difficult it is to work with an “unhappy” senior minister, Ahamed, a veteran politician, “emphatically denies” any attempt at helping the CPI(M) from his party during the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal. “There was a lot of pressure on me to go and campaign in West Bengal but I didn’t go. And in Kerala, the CPI(M) didn’t leave any stone unturned to defeat and malign me. In their campaign, they said I am a spy of Israel. They said I shook hands with George Bush. Anybody who knows my situation in Kerala will never believe that I have helped the communists,” Ahamed said.
After the death of veteran Muslim League leader G M Banatwala, Ahamed was unanimously elected as the national president of the IUML. Shahim Shah Jahangir is also one of the five national secretaries of the party.
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Trinamool Congress sources suggest that Banerjee had another reason to be uncomfortable with Ahamed’s appointment. As Banerjee is trying to project herself as a champion of the minorities, Ahamed’s presence in the ministry might overshadow her political plans. Even as the Trinamool chief expressed her disappointment over Ahamed’s placement in the railway ministry with top Congress brass, she has not lodged any personal allegation against Ahamed.
Banerjee, with 19 MPs in her command, is a precious ally of the Congress in the second UPA government but Ahamed, too, has his own value as a dependable and long-standing ally of the Congress in Kerala. Personally, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are fond of him. And just like Mamata Banerjee, Ahmad too, didn’t bargain with the Congress over the portfolio and accepted whatever Gandhi and Singh offered.