MillenniumPost
Bengal

Mamata slams Centre for defaming state time & again

Kolkata: Without naming BJP, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lambasted the party for again and again defaming the Bengal government at a time when it is simultaneously struggling to save the state from the devastation caused by the Cyclone and COVID-19.

"Am I doing politics at this time of crisis by urging people to oust Narendra Modi from Delhi? But they are over and again doing petty politics by defaming and depriving Bengal and urging people to throw us from power. I feel bad as they do such politics when we are protecting people from both COVID-19 and heavy destruction caused by Cyclone Amphan. This is not the time to do politics. Instead one must stand by the people in distress," said the Chief Minister while addressing a programme on World Environment Day at Harish Park in south Kolkata on Friday.

Making a scathing attack at BJP, she maintained: "We went out to market places, hospitals and stood by conservancy workers. They never stood by people at this time of crisis. They remained indoor in the last two months and continued defaming the state from behind camera just through video conferences. They must come out to help people, clean ponds and remove trees at this time of crisis instead of continuously spreading canards about the state."

Holding the Centre responsible for sending migrant labourers in an ill planned manner, Banerjee said: "Number of COVID-19 cases in Bengal was low. It started going up only with an influx in migrants. It is taking place as the Centre is sending lakhs of people without following any plan of action in place. They were being sent without providing food and treatment. Many have even died while returning."

This comes when 444 people tested positive to COVID-19 in Bengal on Friday and the disease claimed 11 lives in the past 24 hours. The state government has decided to allow family members to see the body of a deceased COVID-19 patient as the body will get covered in a PPE kit fitted with a transparent shield upto the chest. At the same time hospitals no longer need to take permission from the state health department for the disposal of the body of a dead COVID-19 patient.

Expressing solidarity to Maharashtra for the Cyclone Nisarga, she said: "The Cyclone there had hit at a speed of 61 to 65 km per hour and it has been highlighted well in national level. But the situation in Bengal after Cyclone Amphan that hit at a speed of 165 km per hour has been underplayed in national media. It happened because the national media has been tutored to do so and this is how they keep depriving and defaming the state. I can challenge that it would not have been possible for any others to tackle both COVID-19 and the devastating Cyclone simultaneously the way the Bengal government has successfully managed the situations."

So far 10 lakh people have returned to Bengal. Another 1.5 lakh will return by train in the next few days. "Today also I received a request to bring back our people, who are stuck at the Nepal border, by bus," she said.

While speaking about the devastation caused to the greenery by the Cyclone Amphan, Banerjee said that trees on around 1,600 sq km out of the total 4,200 sq km in Sunderbans, that is an international tourist spot and a heritage site, were destroyed. She inaugurated the project of planting 5 crore mangroves at Sunderbans. She also inaugurated the KMC's 50,000 tree plantation programme named as "Re-greening Kolkata", where more than 15,500 trees were uprooted due to the cyclone.

She also urged the people not to create chaos in case of waterlogging for a few hours in the city during monsoon as it takes more than a couple of weeks to clear waterlogging in many other metropolises.

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