20 May , 2021 By : Debdeep Gupta
A political ruckus broke out yet again amidst the Centre and West Bengal government after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she was not allowed to speak at the Prime Minister’s meeting with District Magistrates (DMs) on the issue of COVID while the Centre said only the DMs are supposed to interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the meeting.
PM spoke to a number of DMs during his second such interaction on Thursday, where the CMs of Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh were also present. “No Chief Minister had spoken in the earlier meeting with DMs on Tuesday as well. The CMs are not supposed to speak but are invited for the meeting since the PM is interacting with the DMs. The format of the interaction is shared in advance with the states. No other CM has raised the issue except the West Bengal CM who it seems wanted to create a drama after skipping many earlier review meetings with PM,” a senior government functionary told News18.
He said Banerjee had also not allowed the DM of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas to speak at the meeting, as scheduled, while the DMs of many opposition ruled-states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh had interacted with the PM at the meeting.
Banerjee took umbrage at not getting a chance to speak at the meeting and said CMs sat there “like puppets” while some favoured DMs were allowed to speak.
“The PM never extended the political courtesy to us in the meeting. We (CMs) are not his bonded labourers,” Banerjee said, adding that she wanted clarifications on various issues like guidelines on vaccinations and depleting medicine stocks. “Why is the PM feeling so insecure that he would invite the CMs and then not allow them to speak,” the CM said.
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