Bengal Chief Secretary skips meet with PM

Protesting against the Centre's attempts to destabilise the federal structure of the country, Bengal government has boycotted the meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to developmental projects.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had repeatedly raised her voice against the move of the Centre to directly interact with senior administrative officers bypassing the "elected ministers". This has happened again when the Prime Minister called a meeting with chief secretaries of all the states on Monday.

Sources said there was no representation from Bengal government in the meeting on Monday. The meeting has not been attended as a mark of protest against "the Centre's attack on the federal structure of the country".

The meeting was convened to discuss issues like direct benefit transfer, transport facilities and cashless economy. It is learnt that the issues related to agriculture was also about to come up in the meeting. But none of the ministers were invited to be present in the meeting.

The Chief Minister had earlier said in this regard that the Centre had been directly contacting the IAS officers here despite the existence of an elected government in the state.

She had said that like the Union government, her government in Bengal is also elected by people and there cannot be talks between the two governments bypassing the people's representatives.

Similar issue had cropped up when the matter of the Prime Minister's phone call to the state's chief secretary came to light.

The Chief Minister on Monday too lashed out at the Centre for its attempts to affect the federal structure of the country. She further said that Bengal is number one in most sectors including cleanliness, skill development and agriculture. She also said that the development in the state would continue with the support of the common people.