Aditi Phadnis: Being Nero

PLAIN POLITICS

Buddhadeb's top ministers fiddled while the state caught flu and, literally, burned.

So Nandaram Market in good old Burrabazar is gone, and those unfamiliar with West Bengal are wondering if the portfolio of Pratim Chatterjee, minister for fire and emergency services, should be changed to minister in charge of one fire tender. He is the tallest leader of a tiny entity "" the Marxist Forward Block. The fire in Nandaram Market burned for five continuous days. On the fourth day of the fire, the minister visited the site and was quoted as saying that a very tall ladder had been requisitioned from Haldia Petrochemicals and a helicopter kept on standby. Standby? For what "" till the fire got worse ?

The tallest in the smallest in the Left Front also refused to yield turf. In the best Indian tradition, when the state government couldn't cope, the Army was called in. But so low was the minister's stock with his fire brigade that it refused to obey orders and would not allow the Army to use its turntable ladder. Touchingly, Chatterjee admitted on the fourth day, "Initially there was lack of coordination between the fire brigade and the Army but now there is no problem."

Of course, the minister is more than 10 years older now and one hopes, wiser, but here's a tale about him that bears recounting. In 1995, a short circuit caused a small fire in Writer's Building. Chatterjee, who has had an illustrious decade as minister for fire and emergency services, responded eagerly to reporters' suggestion on a (news-wise) slow Saturday morning, that he lead a procession of fire tenders, bells ringing, to put out the fire. Chatterjee was hanging out of the side of the first fire tender "" helmet and all "" and arrived to a fusillade of flash bulbs.

On another occasion, when he was a little worse for the wear late at night, reporters informed Chatterjee that Mother Teresa had passed away and it would be appropriate for him to pay respects to her. He banged on the doors of Nirmal Hriday, the headquarters of Missionaries of Charity and demanded of the nun who opened the door: "I am Pratim Chatterjee, minister for fire and emergency services. The Mother has asked me to meet her." Few outside Kolkata know that he is a Tollywood actor and has starred in three films: Sangi, Surya and Sangram. The money thus earned goes towards maintaining a library in his constituency.

His detractors say Chatterjee has another qualification. He is one of West Bengal's most ardent admirers of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Need we say more?

Barely had the Burrabazar fire died down that bird flu overtook the chief minister. State Animal Resources Minister Anis Ur Rehman is the man in the forefront of fighting the bird flu outbreak that is sure to set the CPI(M) back in the next round of elections.

Unlike Andhra Pradesh or Gujarat, where the poultry business is mainly in the organised sector, West Bengal has deliberately kept it as a backyard economic activity, run mainly for unemployed youth and women. The upside of this was the state had very little to do with it so it was unregulated. The downside is: with big industry absent, and the state's limited powers of intervention, the disease has spread not just in West Bengal but is threatening the entire east. There is no real data about poultry, so no one has any idea how many chickens need to be culled, how much it will cost, compensation... and once again, it is the poorest, the most unorganised who are the victims.

Could the chief minister have done something about the obvious talent deficit in his government? Shouldn't he have done some kind of audit of his colleagues? Anis Ur Rehman comes from Domkal, a Communist enclave in Murshidabad district which is dominated by the Congress. This, and the fact that he is a Muslim, is the reason he is a minister today. His claim to fame is his success in cutting the roots of a party colleague and former IPS officer Nazrul Islam, who tried to establish some colleges in this backward district "" Rahman saw to it the initiative was razed to the ground. The party "" and in this case the chief minister "" sided with Rahman.

These are not the only stars of the West Bengal government. There's Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty, who is in government because he considers Jyoti Basu a demi-god. The there's Health Minister Surya Kanta Mishra, under whose regime, children die routinely in West Bengal hospitals (the state is one of the lowest-ranking in terms of health services). He has to be kept on because he comes from the Midnapore district which is a Left bastion. His brief is to keep the death toll from any outbreak below five.

Chief ministers have powers. But only when they choose to exercise them.