Will Mamata become Bengal finance minister once Amit Mitra quits?

Come November 4, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra will resign as he has not been an MLA for six months.

An ailing Mitra, who is in his mid-70s, wanted to quit long back. But Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not allow him to.

While there are debates about how successful Mitra was as finance minister, he was considered a ‘productive’ minister who always arranged funds for Mamata’s welfare programmes and doles.

A secretary general of FICCI for more than 15 years, Mitra lacked the experience of governance in Delhi like Ashok Lahiri, BJP's candidate for finance minister in the 2021 election. Lahiri served as chief economic adviser of two prime ministers—Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. But despite his lack of experience, Mamata appointed Mitra in 2011 as finance minister because he had been loyal when he served as her adviser during her stint as railway minister in the second UPA government.

Mitra was given charge of two departments: Finance and industries. Ironically, no new major industrial projects came to West Bengal in the last 10 years, be it in manufacturing or even service sectors. In fact, Infosys refused to open a venture on the large tract of land in an IT park it purchased in the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee era.

The ballooning debt of the state has reached around Rs 5 lakh crore. However, one of the successes of Mitra was the fact that he expanded the tax base marginally and modernised the collection processes.

Moreover, Mitra cannot be held responsible for lack of valuable investment in the state, as Mamata continued with her age-old approach of being opposed to land acquisition policies.

Mitra concentrated on building rural roads. While roads were built, large-scale corruption and lack of money for maintenance of these roads made his policy of massive capital expenditure a faulty one. Earnings from GST and Central funds were splurged on various doles of the chief minister.

As a result of these factors, when COVID hit, Mitra never attended office. He did not present a budget in the assembly and finally refused to stand for election.

The question now arises who would replace him? If Mamata Banerjee would have been interested in any other economists or technocrats, the TMC would have fielded him or her in bypolls. Sources said an offer was given through a politician to Ashok Lahiri, but he rejected it.

Mamata's long-term adviser, economist Abhirup Sarkar, was also unwilling to wear the hat of finance minister.

Government sources say Mamata Banerjee would don the hat of finance minister and a loyalist junior minister would be minister of state. Mitra and Sarkar might continue as her advisers. And the present chief secretary, H.K. Dwivedi, was the finance secretary for eight years before being made home secretary and then chief secretary this year. So he would be the de facto finance minister, who would work at the behest of Mamata. Dwivedi knows every nuance of the department since 2011.

Now, who could be the minister of state if Mamata does not have a cabinet minister for finance? It could be a woman: Chandrima Bhattacharya or Sashi Panja are the names being discussed.