Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee flagged off 30 advanced life support ambulances with ICCU facilities from Nabanna on Monday. The ambulances have been procured from funds donated to the Chief Minister by the Rajya Sabha MPs of Trinamool Congress.
On the occasion, she raised questions over the Centre’s move in sending a fact-finding team to Howrah and reiterated that the plan to carry out arson was made at the BJP party office, a month before Ram Navami.
“A month before Ram Navami, all the planning for the violence was done at the BJP party office. What is the need for a fact-finding team, when normalcy has been restored in the area?” Banerjee questioned.
“Now that the situation has been brought under control, BJP is sending a fact-finding team to further incite violence. The BJP leaders are busy sending several fact-finding teams. They are telling the media to parrot only BJP’s narrative and are busy spreading fake news. Everything that has happened over the past week in Bengal, the BJP has done it deliberately,” she said.
Claiming that people are brought from outside Bengal to foment violence here, Banerjee said: ”All the men who were part of the rally were from outside Bengal, some from Munger in Bihar. People from Bengal stay together, they don’t indulge in danga (riots). There was absolutely no foul play by our police forces. The police, in a very tactful manner, tried to end the violence and control the situation.”
She added: “In the meeting with the police officials, the organisers had said that they would take out the procession during lunch hours, but BJP intentionally and deliberately took out the rally during the time of namaz to incite people. Also, what is the need for BJP workers to carry out a procession with firearms? Why were those in the procession dancing with arms? For a religious procession, what is the need for arms? Who permitted these people to bring bulldozers and tractors to a rally?“ she questioned.
Banerjee referred to a piece of news regarding Keoratala crematorium being aired in a section of media on Monday as fake news.
“I will ask the police to probe the matter and bring the accused to the book. There is a law regarding the spreading of fake news. I condemn those who are spreading fake news over Keoratala. This is not fake speech, but hate speech. You can continue abusing me, it won’t matter, but I will not tolerate hate speech at any cost,” she added. Flagging off the ambulances, she said: “Earlier over 625 ambulances with state-of-the-art facilities were introduced through funds given to me by our Lok Sabha MPs. Now, another 30 have been pressed into service through funds received from MPs. They have given it to me so that it can be utilised for the benefit of the people and I have utilised it for ambulance service,“ Banerjee said. Banerjee said that another Rs 1 crore has been allocated for the development of Murshidabad Medical College through MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) funds.
“85 community centres for facilitating the common people to host social functions will be set up in districts through the MPLADS fund,” she added.
Banerjee accused the Centre of depriving Bengal of its share of GST collected from the state and maintained that her party’s decision to support the passage of the GST Bill was wrong. “We have made a mistake in supporting the passing of the GST (Bill). The Centre is collecting all the taxes and not giving us our share of it,” she said.