Deepa Dasmunshi in Bengal brigade set for a cabinet debut

Kolkata, Oct 28: Ahead of today's reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers,

MP and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's bete noire Deepa Dasmunshi has said that she received a phone call from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh informing her that she would be inducted in the ministry.

"I received a call during the day from the Prime Minister informing me that I would be inducted in the Union Council of Ministers and the swearing-in of new ministers is scheduled at 11:30 am. I am happy and I would try to fulfill my responsibilities as a minister", Deepa, wife of the ailing former union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi told a Bengali TV channel last night.

"No I have not been indicated about the portfolio that I would be holding", Deepa, the party MP from Raiganj in North Bengal, said.

She said that she received the call from Prime Minister when she was going to see his ailing husband at a private hospital in the capital.

Deepa , who has been locked in a tussle with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the location of the super-speciality project, said that her becoming a central minister would help in her fight to set up an AIIMS hospital at Raiganj.

The late Congress leader A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury's brother and the party MP from Malda South Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury who had indicated on Friday that he had also received the PM's call asking him to be present at Rashtrapati Bhavan, said "I am likely to be taken in the ministry".

"I would invite Ratan Tata to set up industry in Malda. I would also request the West Bengal Chief Minister to change her land policy," he said.

PTI