India / Ready to touch your feet, stop vendetta: Mamata to PM after skipping meet

Kolkata: A day after the controversy erupted over Mamata Banerjee skipping the Cyclone Yaas review meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bengal Chief Minister on Saturday said that she felt bad and humiliated by running the one-sided information circulated by the PMO.

“I felt bad. They humiliated me by running the one-sided information circulated by PMO. When I was working, they were doing this. For the sake of people, I am ready to touch your feet. Stop this political vendetta,” Mamata Banerjee said.

Saying that she has already told PM Modi that she has to go to Digha as weather is not good, Mamata said she visited Patharpratima and other places, though weather did not permit. “We went there to meet the PM to hand over the project report. I handed over the report to him and took his permission before we left,” she added.

Mamata Banerjee also urged the Union government to withdraw its order recalling Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay and allow the senior bureaucrat to work for people amid the COVID-19 crisis.

She also claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were trying to create problems for her government at every step as they were yet to come to terms with BJP’s defeat in the assembly elections.

Banerjee further stated that she was ready to touch PM Modi’s feet if told to do for the sake of West Bengal’s growth and development.

“Because you (Modi and Shah) cannot digest BJP’s defeat in (Bengal), you have started creating problems for us from Day one. What is the fault of the chief secretary? Recalling the chief secretary amid the COVID crisis goes on to show that the Centre was indulging in political vendetta,” she asserted.

Talking about the criticism she faced for skipping the review meeting with Modi on cyclone devastation, Banerjee said, “It was supposed to be held between the PM and the CM. Why were BJP leaders called to the session?”

She also claimed that opposition leaders were not invited to similar review meetings held in Gujarat and Odisha, the two states that also faced cyclone fury over the past few days.