Do It Yourself, Mamata Banerjee Told Amit Shah On COVID-19. What He Said

Kolkata:

Raising the political pitch in her battle with the centre over the dealing with of the coronavirus disaster, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday revealed she had advised Union Home Minister Amit Shah that if he thought the state authorities was failing to deal with the disaster correctly, why did not he try to take care of it himself. She additionally accused the Railway Minister of politics over migrant trains, no less than 28 of that are anticipated within the state from Maharashtra within the subsequent 24 hours.

“I told Amit Shah, you are sending constantly central teams to Bengal. Go right ahead. But if you think the West Bengal government can’t do the job, why don’t you handle the corona crisis yourself? I have no problem,” Ms Banerjee advised a information briefing in Kolkata, known as to deal with the problem of a spate of migrant employees’ trains arriving in West Bengal from Wednesday.

“I thank him for what he said in response,” she added. “He said… ‘No, no, how can we dislodge an elected government’. He said that to me.”

Ms Banerjee and Mr Shah have taken photographs at one another over the coronavirus disaster. Not solely did the Union Home Secretary and the Bengal chief secretary trade terse letters on the problem, Mr Shah wrote to Ms Banerjee declaring flaws in her COVID-19 administration. One of his letters reached the media even earlier than the she responded and he or she had expressed outrage.

“I would normally never disclose all this. But given the situation, I want to tell Amit Shah, take care. You have done the lockdown. But trains and planes are running. So what about the people?” she mentioned.

“I want to tell PM and HM (Home Minister), please see corona doesn’t spread. We already have 1 lakh cases. Some quarters want it to spread for politics. Bihar is affected. Rajasthan, MP, it is spreading everywhere. What can I do? In this disastrous situation, I want PM to intervene,” she mentioned.

While that gave the impression of an enchantment, the primary thrust of Ms Banerjee’s press meet was the large variety of migrant trains now on solution to Bengal. In the subsequent 24 hours or so, as many as 36 trains are anticipated to reach in Bengal from throughout Maharashtra, the worst affected state.

Ms Banerjee has claimed the sudden deployment of migrant trains to Bengal was a political ploy to “disturb” her. What she left unsaid was that the BJP was making an attempt to create hassle for Trinamool forward of the 2021 meeting elections.

“They are trying to disturb me politically but ending up disturbing West Bengal. Disturb me politically but do some planning about the migrant trains,” she mentioned.

“What is this nonsense? We are battling corona on one hand, the cyclone on the other. And they are sending all these trains. Doesn’t the railway ministry have any sense of responsibility? They were supposed to consult state governments before sending. Why didn’t they consult us? They did not follow our schedule. They did what was politically convenient to them and forcefully. Don’t you see it is causing trouble for Bengal? We are in the middle of a natural calamity. Should I be handling the calamity, people’s suffering or the politics they have thrust upon me?” she mentioned.

Rival BJP in Bengal has accused Ms Banerjee of making an attempt to shirk her accountability in direction of migrants, claiming she didn’t need them again. For poll-bound Bengal, that could be a vastly emotive difficulty. Reports from the districts recommend folks on the bottom are divided on migrants returning. While many need their migrant kin again, there’s concern amongst different that the return of the migrants could trigger a COVID-19 an infection explosion.

BJP claimed Mamata Banerjee didn’t need to take accountability for treating, testing or quarantining the migrants. And certainly initially, migrant trains coming to Bengal had been few and much between. But in a transparent change of political technique, Ms Banerjee has mentioned she’s going to convey the migrants dwelling. “If they had executed our plans properly, they would all be back in 15 days,” she mentioned.

But BJP is making an attempt to show her alleged double communicate. On Wednesday, it issued a nine-point chargesheet in opposition to the Mamata Banerjee authorities on its completion of 9 years in workplace. Among the fees is the state authorities’s tardiness to get migrants again. “While UP had hundreds of trains carrying migrants in the first round, Bengal had less than 10,” the chargesheet mentioned.