West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s chain-smoking is not only hurting him but has also begun to hurt the state.
KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s chain-smoking is not only hurting him but has also begun to hurt the state. State capital Kolkata recently lost millions of dollars in foreign aid to its anti-smoking campaign because the funding agency went by Buddhadeb’s public image of a smoker.
Bloomberg Initiative rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) application for funds to Kolkata to curb tobacco consumption, saying when the West Bengal chief minister himself smokes publicly, how can we believe the others in the state will be interested in controlling tobacco?
Two such WHO applications for aid, running into millions of dollars, have been rejected in the last few months even as Bloomberg Initiative approved similar applications from Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh and sanctioned grants.
Buddhadeb was not available for comment, but his associates in the chief minister’s secretariat strongly denied allegations that he had been smoking publicly of late.
“Since his smoking habit was highlighted by the media and following the appeal by Union health minister Ambumani Ramadoss to quit smoking and set an example, the chief minister has consciously avoided smoking publicly,” one said.
The associate also said it was totally wrong that the chief minister smoked in his Writers’ Building office. “He never smokes in his office since several people come to meet him there. When he feels like smoking, he goes to the antechamber,” he said.
The associate claimed Buddhadeb also avoids smoking in party programmes held in the open. “You may recall that at the recent party Congress in Coimbatore, the chief minister had to sit on the dais for hours. But not once was he seen going out to take a puff.”
The chief minister is indeed trying to avoid public smoking, as was evident at the foundation day dinner of Kolkata Press Club a few months ago. When club-member scribes offered him a cup of coffee, a smiling chief minister refused politely and said, “If I have coffee now I will feel the urge to have something else, which I do not want to do in a public place like this.”
The chief minister’s associates said there could be some other reason for the denial of funds to Kolkata.
Legal brains also did not find any rationale in the claim that Kolkata was denied funds because Buddhadeb is a chain-smoker.
Renowned human rights lawyer Kaushik Gupta said it was wrong to judge an entire city and state based on the habit of an individual.
“Smoking is a matter of personal choice for the chief minister unless he smokes in public or directly encourages public smoking. It is foolish to believe that all smokers in the state smoke because the chief minister smokes,” he said.
r_sumanta@dnaindia.net
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