A fuming Mamata Banerjee on Friday dashed off a strong letter to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar suggesting ways of addressing a Chief Minister even as she stuck to her earlier stand on “army coup” remark against the Narendra Modi Government that she made early this month questioning some routine army exercise near her State secretariat Nabanna allegedly without her consent.
Bengal Chief Minister’s hard-hitting missive shot off barely a few hours after she received a protest letter from the Defence Minister that confronted her allegations in relation to an Army exercise in which the forces gathered information on available public careers to be requisitioned during emergency situations.
Banerjee’s remarks “run the risk of adversely impacting the morale of the country’s armed forces,” he said.
Almost reproducing her usual way of attacking opposition in public nBanerjee’s ‘sharp-tongued’ letter reminded how “unhappy” she was with the “language used by the Defence Minister in the letter.”
Claiming that her remarks against the Army, was actually not against the men in olive-green but directed at the Central Government she said, “I take strong exception to your wild assertion that my articulation of rights of State Government has impacted the morale of armed forces. Don’t think that it behoves a Union Government Minister to pass near-defamatory remarks on a CM of any State.”
Alleging once again that the Government was using Army for political gain that she often chooses to refer to as “political vendetta” Banerjee said, “they don’t even know how to write to a Chief Minister. They are using the Army to achieve political gains.”
The Chief Minister also wondered how a “Government-to Government letter” could be leaked to the media letting it appear in the channels much before it landed at her table.