We chatted a lot: Mamata Banerjee on meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Telegraph | 2 March 2024
Mamata Banerjee met Narendra Modi at the Raj Bhavan here on Friday and attributed the visit to “courtesy” and “protocol”.
The state BJP, wary about the meeting creating confusion ahead of the general election, said the chief minister’s attempt to please the Prime Minister would not work.
“She is coming to bow down before the Prime Minister. But she won’t get any relief.... This is Modi, he will not loot and nor will he allow anyone else to loot,” the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, said.
Modi is on a two-day trip to Bengal that includes an overnight stay at the Raj Bhavan. He arrived in the city after addressing a government programme and a political rally in Arambagh, Hooghly.
Asked about the Prime Minister’s attack on Trinamul over Sandeshkhali, the chief minister made it clear she would not respond to such questions as she was at the Raj Bhavan in keeping with protocol.
“The party will respond; I will not say anything,” she said.
She added: “As the elections have not been declared yet, I came here to meet the Prime Minister in keeping with protocol…. Whatever we (Trinamul) have to say (against the Centre), we will say from the political stage. As I could not meet him at the RCTC (Royal Calcutta Turf Club, where the Prime Minister’s helicopter from Arambagh landed), I came here to meet him. I raised issues of the state and we chatted a lot.”
Whenever Mamata has met Modi in the past, the Congress and the Left have accused her of striking a deal with the Prime Minister to protect her party colleagues who are under investigation for corruption by central agencies.
Mamata has always denied these allegations of a “setting” (deal) while saying she respects the federal character of the Indian system and that meeting the Prime Minister is protocol.
Friday’s meeting brought the
expected charges from the Left and the Congress.
CPM
leader Sujan Chakraborty said: “Corruption by the Mamata Banerjee government
has increased during Modi’s tenure. It was not a scheduled meeting
but a sitting to strike a setting. It was a sitting for seat negotiations: the ED
and the CBI are mum and are working to save pishi-bhaipo (Mamata and her nephew
Abhishek Banerjee).”
State
Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury wondered whether the meeting was “Bengal Didi’s
ploy” to “hand over a gift to
please Modi”.
“We
want to know what transpired at the Raj Bhavan meeting,” he said.
Friday’s
meeting came against the backdrop of Mamata’s repeated demands to the Centre to
release the funds due to the state. Sources said the chief minister had handed
over a piece of paper to the
Prime Minister during the meeting.
“The
chief minister reminded the Prime Minister about the state’s dues under several
rural development schemes,” a senior
state official said.
“Bengal
is yet to receive dues of about Rs 20,000 crore under various schemes,
including the 100 days’ job scheme and the rural housing and rural road programmes.”
Mamata
had met Modi in Delhi on December 20 last year and asked that funds for the
rural development schemes be released immediately.
As
decided at that meeting, central government officials met their Bengal
counterparts in January. But no money has come so far.
“So,
the chief minister did not want to miss another chance to raise the issue with
the Prime Minister,” a source
said.
Sources
speculated that Mamata may have made Modi aware that the state government had
begun clearing the MGNREGA workers’ arrears from its own funds.
She
may have also informed the Prime Minister that if the Centre did not release
funds under the rural housing scheme, the state would start spending out of its
own pocket on this scheme too, the sources suggested.
“If
the issue was raised during the meeting, it would definitely put the Centre
under pressure ahead of the polls,” a source
said.