Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday remained non-committal to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s request for a loan waiver. According to sources present in the meeting, the PM told Bannerjee and the Trinamool Congress that if the Centre acceded to her request it would mean doing the same for other States too.
He further maintained that since the Centre has now decided to grant royalty from auction of coal blocks to the States they should use the money to generate their own funds. But assured her that the Centre will leave no stone unturned in aiding the development of the State.
“The huge debt burden left on us, as a legacy of the previous Government, has made West Bengal No.1 debt-stressed State in the country,” Banerjee tweeted after the meeting. This was the West Bengal Chief Minister’s first meeting with Modi, since he took power at the Centre in May last year. In Kolkata, estranged TMC leader Mukul Roy, pinched the State Government, saying Mamata should have met the PM much earlier for the sake of the State.
The former Trinamool Congress general secretary launched a veiled attack on Mamata for delaying her meeting with Modi, saying there was no place for vanity in a federal system and that it was the duty of the State Government to work in tandem with the Centre and lighten the burden of dues.
“In a federal system a State has to maintain good chemistry with the Centre and petition it for its rightful demands. It is a welcome move on the part of the CM to meet the PM...” with the request for reducing the debt burden on the State which the Trinamool Government inherited from the previous Governments. But then, the meeting should have taken place even earlier. It was not wise on our part to delay this meeting by eight months,” Roy said, adding that “however it is better late than never.”
Mamata, accompanied by her party MPs, also met Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Barring an accidental encounter at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in December, Mamata has avoided PM Modi in the past 10 months, not even sending a representative to the first meeting of the Niti Aayog, which has replaced the Planning Commission, in February.
The meeting is seen as significant in the middle of the government’s steeped up attempts to bring the Opposition on board on its controversial land bill, which it wants to push in Parliament this week. TMC is strongly opposing the bill.
According to one of the TMC MPs, the Prime Minister was “warm” in welcoming the TMC delegation but did not give any firm assurances on financial issues bedeviling the state government. Eom