BJP slams Mamata after she says PM Modi does not allow any CM to speak

Vibha Sharma

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 20

The BJP on Thursday slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on her “behaviour” at a Covid meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing her of “disrupting” and “trying to derail” it at a time when everyone should be speaking in one voice.

Countering her allegations, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the West Bengal CM “needs to look within herself to see if her behaviour was appropriate”. He also accused Mamata of not allowing the District Magistrate of 24 Parganas to speak in Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with the DMs and field officials today.

The West Bengal CM has accused the Prime Minister “for not allowing” her and her counterparts from other states to speak in the meeting.

Prasad said the Prime Minister was trying to understand the good works done by districts and collectorates during the pandemic. “Mostly she (Mamata) does not participate in the meetings called by the PM. However, today she tried to disrupt it. If the PM is talking to DMs on the good work on their districts what is wrong with that,” he questioned, calling her behaviour “shameful, condemnable and least expected by the CM of a state at a meeting called by the PM”.

“But nothing better can be expected of Mamatadi, she rarely attends a meeting called by the PM. She has not attended several meetings in the past. You don’t attend a meeting that is entirely your call…but you come to the meeting and try to derail it, that is unacceptable,” the Union minister said.

Alleging that all CMs have been “reduced to puppets” and are “not allowed to speak” during the meetings with Prime Minister Modi, Mamata said, “The meeting was casual and a super flop. We were astonished that the Chief Ministers were made to sit like puppets in the meeting. If we are not allowed to speak, then how could we raise people’s issues?”

The CM said if allowed to speak, she would have discussed black fungus and vaccination strategy. She said she wanted to ask the Prime Minister about the extension of the interval between the two doses of vaccines. “If states were not allowed to speak, why were they called? All the CMs must protest for not being allowed to speak,” she said.