West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre why there had been intelligence failure in Pulwama \u2013 leading to the death of over 40 CRPF personnel \u2013 and raised questions on the timing of the government\u2019s action against Pakistan \u201cwith elections knocking at the door\u201d.<\/p>\n
Banerjee held a press conference at Nabanna, the state administrative headquarters, and said, \u201cHow did you allow this (Pulwama incident) to happen and what action have you taken in these five years? Now, when election is knocking at the door, you thought it important to create a shadow war?\u201d Banerjee thundered.<\/p>\n
She pointed out that though the Opposition parties, including herself, had brought up no political issues since the horrific incident at Kashmir\u2019s Pulwama on February 14, to show solidarity and support to the government, the BJP leaders had talked about political issues in their public speeches nonetheless. \u201cDid you hear what Amit Shah said in Assam yesterday? It was a political speech,\u201d Banerjee said.<\/p>\n
The Bengal CM said that following the Pulwama incident, the BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were trying to create unrest Bengal, and it could incite communal riots in Bengal. \u201cI am requesting all political parties to ask people to maintain peace,\u201d she said. She added that there were incidents of attack on Kashmiris reported to her not only outside Bengal but also within the state. \u201cI have asked the police to act immediately,\u201d she said. \u201cThe BJP, VHP and the RSS are spreading fake news\u2026 there is communal propaganda at work,\u201d Banerjee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to strengthen our unity and won\u2019t allow anything that is communally dangerous,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy are they doing this if they were confident? It means they are now scared,\u201d Banerjee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrorists are terrorists, they are not religious organisations. We have to deal with them strongly. People of this country are patriotic and BJP should not take advantage of the situation. Why are you dividing the country?\u201d Banerjee asked.<\/p>\n
She said that there should be a high-level investigation into why the Pulwama incident happened. \u201cSuch a lot of money is spent on the government\u2019s publicity. Couldn\u2019t the jawans be airlifted instead of exposing them to risk, instead of properly sanitising the route they were taking?\u201d Banerjee asked.<\/p>\n
She added that since the Opposition parties had united together ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, it would be best for these political parties to express their stance together in the matter. \u201cI have some things in mind. But we should say it together as a united voice,\u201d the Bengal CM said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre why there had been intelligence failure in Pulwama \u2013 leading to the death of over 40 CRPF personnel \u2013 and raised questions on the timing of the government\u2019s action against Pakistan \u201cwith elections knocking at the door\u201d. Banerjee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":4495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4494"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=4494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}