West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta had a surprise visitor, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, at the Secretariat here on Tuesday.
As he was walking down the corridor of the heritage building, where he held a meeting of the Chief Ministers and key officials of four Maoist activity-hit eastern States earlier in the day, Mr. Chidambaram saw the nameplate of the State Finance Minister and walked into his room.
West Bengal and Orissa Chief Ministers Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Navin Patnaik, who were accompanying Mr. Chidambaram, followed him into Dr. Dasgupta’s room.
They spent five minutes in Dr. Dasgupta’s chamber as the surprised officers and office staff of the Finance Minister looked on, unsure what to do.
As Union Finance Minister in the previous UPA government, Mr. Chidambaram had had close interactions with Dr. Dasgupta, a Harvard-trained economist. Dr. Dasgupta played a key role in the national rollout of the value-added tax during that period.
