Mamata Banerjee writes letter to Narendra Modi, says ‘explain coronavirus-watch teams in West Bengal’ 

Mamata Banerjee. 

The chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, wrote a letter to the prime minister, Narendra Modi, in which she asked to explain why the Centre wants to send teams to her state to examine alleged violations of the coronavirus lockdown.

In an angry letter to Modi, the Banerjee, on Monday, wrote that while the Union home minister, Amit Shah, spoke to her around 1pm to inform her about the visit, the teams had already landed in Kolkata airport at 10.10am, which was much before the conversation.

It must be noted that two interministerial teams had already landed in Kolkata, hours before her tweets on this issue, with the aim to visit seven districts, including state capital Kolkata, to investigate reports of alleged violation of lockdown rules.

Alleging breach of protocol, she wrote that the home ministry’s order on the central teams’ visit in Bengal also reached only 30 minutes before they arrived.

Banerjee also slammed the allegations that the lockdown had been violated in Bengal and the situation was “specifically serious” in some districts and dismissed them as “figments of imagination”. She said, “The selection of districts and observations made unilaterally are nothing but figments of imagination and unfortunate.”

We welcome all constructive support & suggestions, especially from the Central Govt in negating the #Covid19 crisis. However, the basis on which Centre is proposing to deploy IMCTs in select districts across India including few in WB under Disaster Mgmt Act 2005 is unclear.(1/2)

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) April 20, 2020

I urge both Honb’le Prime Minister @NarendraModi Ji & Home Minister @AmitShah Ji to share the criterion used for this. Until then I am afraid, we would not be able to move ahead on this as without valid reasons this might not be consistent with the spirit of federalism. (2/2)

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) April 20, 2020

Related