At a time when the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is coming under heavy fire over her conduct as she not only kept the Prime Minister of the country waiting for 30 minutes over a review meeting for Cyclone Yaas, when she arrived, she just handed over some documents pertaining to the cyclone and left the meeting, Banerjee has pinned the blame on the presence of Suvendu Adhikari as she uses his presence as an excuse to not attend the meeting.
Apart from the ecosystem journalists who hailed Mamata Banerjee for disrespecting the Prime Minister’s Chair, her conduct was uniformly condemned across the country. Facing a severe backlash, she has resorted to using the presence of her bete-noire Suvendu Adhikari as an excuse to not attend the meeting.
Alleging that PM Modi creates “confusion and confrontation” every time he visits West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, during a Press Conference said, “The meeting was supposed to be held between the Prime Minister and the chief ministers of the states affected. I had to wait for a very long time and despite that, I met the Prime Minister and I did take his permission before leaving.”
She added, “The plans were changed and the meeting now had the leader of the opposition, MLAs from the BJP. I want to ask the PM that when he visited Gujarat last week did he call the leader of opposition in that state for the meeting. Every time the PM visits Bengal why is there such confrontation and confusion. Why should I sit in the meeting when there are political parties who are not entitled to be a part of that meeting present there?”
Mamata’s close bond with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has certainly rubbed off on the West Bengal Chief Minister as she channelled her inner SRK to stage an almighty drama. Banerjee said that she’s ready to beg at the feet of the Prime Minister if that’s what takes to stop the political vendetta.
Attacking the Modi government over the recall of her Chief Secretary, Banerjee said, “Do you have any courtesy? (You have recalled him on) on his last day?” Mamata Banerjee asked. She also said that the BJP is unable to accept its defeat in Bengal. “You are not only disturbing me, but you are also disturbing my secretariat. Why are you behaving like this? We have won by a landslide. Is that your worry?”
While Opposition Chief Ministers like Naveen Patnaik stand as a shining example of cooperative federalism, Banerjee is increasingly coming out as a perpetually angry and bitter Chief Minister who refuses to co-operate even in times of a disaster.
