Centre accuses Mamata Banerjee of making PM Modi & Governor wait for half an hour at cyclone review meeting
Bengal government officials were reported saying Banerjee's meeting with PM Modi was fixed ahead of the meeting.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday skipped a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who visited the state to assess the impact of Cyclone Yaas. Banerjee had a discussion with him at the airbase where his flight landed. She handed him a report on the state’s assessment of the cyclone’s impact.
The CM reportedly said that she and chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay went to meet PM Modi at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Midnapore district as they wanted to submit the report. She said she had a meeting at Digha and asked the PM’s permission to leave. This was the first time Mamata Banerjee and PM Modi met since Banerjee’s landslide victory in the Assembly elections. Modi went to the Kalaikunda airbase after an aerial survey of the damage in neighbouring Odisha.
According to reports, Banerjee had informed the Centre about her meeting but she was asked to wait for PM Modi at the airbase. The Centre was reported alleging that Banerjee kept PM Modi and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar waiting for half an hour. A photo was tweeted by Dhankhar showing the Prime Minister at the head of a table with BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and some officials seated and some empty chairs. Dhankhar took to Twitter to write that Mamata Banerjee and her officials “did not participate” and said it was a “boycott”.
However, some officials were quoted saying that the Bengal government had confirmed the time with the PM separately before the review meeting was to start. She had also informed about her meeting elsewhere. They asked why she was still made to wait.
[Picture tweeted by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar]
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