Bengal minister picks ladylove over job, quits

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, November 20

Kolkata Mayor and West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services and Housing Minister Sovan Chatterjee (54), who fell in love with a college teacher, today resigned from the Council of ministers after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked him to choose between his ladylove and job.

Chatterjee’s resignation has been accepted by the CM, who has also asked him to quit as Mayor. Chatterjee’s extramarital affair with the political science teacher, married to a university professor, has figured in the media several times in the past, causing much embarrassment to the Mamata government.

The resignation comes after Mamata gave Sovan a dressing down over the slow progress of a scheme to allot houses under the Gitanjali

scheme meant for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) after the matter was raised by the Opposition in the Assembly. Mamata reportedly told the minister that instead of working, he was spending more time in shops selling women’s apparels like “sari and bangles”. Mamata also told Sovan she had photographic evidence of his shopping escapades with his woman friend.

Anguished at the “watch” mounted on his movement by adversaries, Sovan, a father of two, resigned. Sovan’s estranged wife Ratna Chatterjee reacted to the resignation using wrestling parlance: “Sovan has hit the floor because of his own weakness. He failed to break out of the stranglehold.” Sovan’s father-in-law Dulal Das, a ruling party MLA, has publicly accused the teacher of destroying Sovan’s marriage.