The state government has just announced that 44 “Parliamentary Secretaries” will be appointed to assist State Ministers in their administrative work and other official business. Their salaries, perks, facilities, allowances etc. will be almost at par with the Ministers of State. For the record, the total number of TMC MLAs in a house of 294 is 185.

The post of Parliamentary Secretary is a throwback to the British days. It was done away with in the early fifties in Independent India. Introducing the requisite legislation on the last day of the six-day, long winter session of the house, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Partha Chatterjee, said that such secretaries were appointed during the Left rule as well. Not a single opposition member was present, on account of a boycott over certain issues. Later, Left leaders pointed out that during the early fifties in the state, their parties were in the opposition — in fact, they were in opposition till 1967! Since 1967, no one had been appointed as parliamentary secretary in the state.

Ministers in most states are helped in their work by their personal assistants or departmental Secretaries, who are government employees. Mr. Chatterjee clearly misled the house, making an incorrect statement. More importantly, his justification of a dubious decision by citing a “Left” example, even if wrongly, proved how enduring is the TMC’s obsession with Leftism, something it is sworn to oppose!

The announcement came as a major surprise. Barely 24 hours ago, Chief Minister Ms. Banerjee had declared that West Bengal was in such dire financial straits that no one would buy it even at an auction. She would never have been the Chief Minister if only she had known the state of its finances earlier, etc. — another factually incorrect statement.

And here was her trusted Minister announcing 44 new posts, which would involve a huge administrative expenditure! TMC leaders remained tight-lipped as to the cost of the new exercise. However, Mr. Dilip Banerjee, former Secretary to West Bengal Assembly, estimated that the cumulative costs would reach at least Rs 100 crore annually. ”Not bad for a bankrupt state up for auction!” quipped a Left MLA!

The irony is that such a huge dose of unproductive expenditure has become necessary only to save the TMC from an imminent split. For all her hectoring, browbeating ways, Ms. Banerjee is losing control within her party. Consider the list of dissidents who have spoken out critically against the party so far. They include eminent men like MPs Kabir Suman and Dinesh Trivedi. Then come the MLAs, including ex Ministers Rabindranath Bhattacharya and Shyamal Mandal, senior Trade Union leader Sobhandeb Chatterjee and Ms. Shikha Mitra, wife of influential TMC MP Somen Mitra.

These persons have gone on record, complained to the media about “the way things were being done” or stopped attending their administrative or party offices. But they keep in touch with scores of their party colleagues and others, including those in the Congress(I). Names of other MPs, Ministers and MLAs, suspected of sympathising with dissidents spotted already, are known to the media. Ms. Banerjee’s blind reliance in one or two of her confidantes, like Mr. Mukul Roy, Mr. Firhad Hakim and Mr. Chatterjee, to the exclusion of others, also contributes to this process of the supreme leader alienating those who feel unrewarded or ignored in her flock.

At least on two occasions the TMC has been threatened with a split. The first time was when Mr. Trivedi was made to resign as the Union Railways Minister. There was a fresh regrouping among dissidents when the TMC pulled its six Ministers out of the UPA-II Ministry. Alert to the developments, Ms. Banerjee quickly “rehabilitated” the six by appointing them as “advisers” to the Ministry in West Bengal. Each has been provided with an independent office, transport and other facilities, again at the expense of the taxpayers.

Now comes the decision to appoint 44 parliamentary secretaries out of the ranks of TMC MLAs so that a large number of them can be kept immune to the contagion of political dissidence.

As the city’s biggest Bengali daily notes in its editorial (translation by author) “Barely a month ago, the State Government had appointed six Advisers to help Ministries improve their performance. But even the most ardent spokesman for the government can hardly claim that the administration has improved or the state has made any visible progress. Instead of progressing fast on the road to development, the state is rapidly moving backward and ever more backward! There is total anarchy and stagnation. It is not clear what advice, if any, have the Advisers offered the Ministers. What they have failed to do, the government now says, the Parliamentary Secretaries will make up for and achieve. Which citizen of the state will be convinced by such logic?”

Surely, further comments are not necessary. Incidentally, it is not the first time that Ms. Banerjee has penalised taxpayers to help her maintain discipline within the TMC. As the Union Railway Minister, she had appointed three committees of pro-TMC intellectuals “to help the Railways function better”, all members coming from West Bengal, with a nice salary plus allowances package. Needless to say, this, at a time when the Railways, because of a financial crunch, found it hard to improve safety or service standards, evoked much resentment. But the committees were imposed on the people to make sure that pro-TMC intellectuals were kept happy.

Fortunately, the new Railway Minister Adhir Choudhury has done the people of India a rare service by booting out the committees unceremoniously. There is little doubt that the fate of the six Advisers and 44 Parliamentary Secretaries will not be much different after 2016 when the next assembly polls are held — maybe even before. (IPA Service)