In a show of aggression Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday not only reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a virtual event — where the duo had joined to inaugurate a second campus of a cancer hospital in Kolkata — that she had already inaugurated the Hospital which was partly funded by the State Government but also used the public forum to lodge a verbal complaint against Governor JagdeepDhankhar for his ‘unduly interfering’ with the affairs of governance.
Banerjee had been invited in the virtual programme where the Prime Minister was to inaugurate the second campus of the Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital. Informing the Prime Minister that the State Government too had contributed funds and provided the land for the Hospital Banerjee said, “The Prime Minister will be happy to know that we are also contributing 25 per cent of the cost from the State’s fund,” adding, “I want to tell him for his knowledge that we have already inaugurated this (second campus of CNCI). How did we do that?When there was Covid and we needed a Covid care center, and I saw the Chittaranjan hospital was attached with the State Government, and weconverted it to a Covid-care center and it helped us a lot.”
Saying that she participated in the programme because she was twice invited to do so and because “the Prime Minister himself took interest in this program,” Banerjee referred to the alleged non-cooperation on the part of the State Governor. Referring to the new appointments of the doctors during corona times, Banerjee said, “the Governor is raising various questions … asking for reports on doctors’ questions … he doesn’t even know that we are doing it at the instance of the Centre … We always follow the Centre’s guidelines in 99 percent of cases … there may be political differences but in the case of running administration we always follow the Prime Minister’s directive … the Governor does not even know that, and asks various questions as ‘to why did you do this … show this … show that.”
Soon BJP resorted to a counterattack with its leader Amit Malavyasaying “Mamata Banerjee is incorrigible… Notwithstanding the fact thatshe is on path of constant, needless confrontation, she must realize that inaugurating a building as Covid facility is not the same as inaugurating a Cancer facility in a hospital. Imagine what Bengal has to suffer!”
State BJP president Sikanto Majumdar too attacked the Chief Minister for “refusing understand the importance of situations. He said “the Chief Minister today created a history in the field of political decorum … never in the history Independent India any Chief Ministerhas in a public forum complained against a Governor who is the guardian of the Constitution like this … it is for the people to understand how constitutional propriety is maintained in Bengal.”