By IANS,
Lucknow: Union Minister of State for Steel Beni Prasad Verma Thursday expressed his displeasure over denial of cabinet rank while being inducted into the union council of ministers earlier this month.
“It did hurt me for a while, but then I decided to overlook that since my earlier appointment as a cabinet minister for communications was done under different circumstances 15 years ago, when I was in the Samajwadi Party with Mulayam Singh Yadav,” Verma told a press conference.
“When I was inducted in this government last week, Mulayam Singh Yadav called up to congratulate me; but the moment he said that he would have been happier if I had declined the position, I told him flatly not to provoke me,” disclosed Verma, who was here on a day’s visit.
Verma, a former socialist leader who joined the Congress in 2008, was inducted into the union cabinet as a minister of state in charge of steel Jan 19. Verma, a former close aide of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh, had been a cabinet minister during 1996-98 in charge of the communications ministry.