West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: PTI File Photo
The West Bengal legislative assembly on Monday witnessed uproar with the ruling Trinamool Congress crying foul over the alleged ‘humiliation’ of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the recent meeting of the NITI Aayog and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s legislators staging a walkout.
Banerjee, who was herself present in the statute assembly, reiterated her allegation that while the chief ministers of the states ruled by the BJP and its allies in the National Democratic Alliance had been allowed to speak at the meeting of the NITI Aayog for 20-25 minutes, her microphone had been switched off just five minutes after she had started delivering her speech at the meeting.
The MLAs of her Trinamool Congress projected the ‘humiliation’ of the chief minister at the meeting of the NITI Aayog in New Delhi as a ‘humiliation’ of the state by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. They were however countered by the BJP MLAs, who argued that what the chief minister had told journalists after the NITI Aayog meeting on Sunday had not correctly reflected what had happened at the conclave.
Manas Bhunia, a minister of the TMC government in the state, moved a special notice in the state legislative assembly expressing serious concern over the incident of switching the microphone off during the state chief minister’s speech at the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi last Saturday.
He proposed a condemnation by the state assembly over the ‘humiliation’ of the chief minister of West Bengal at the NITI Aayog meeting. Speaker Biman Banerjee had suspended the question hour to facilitate discussion on the special notice. Chandrima Bhattacharya, the Minister of State for Finance of the TMC government in West Bengal, said that the humiliation of the chief minister was also a ‘humiliation’ of the state.
Bhunia’s notice was opposed by Shankar Ghosh, the chief whip of the BJP, who argued that whatever the state’s chief minister had said to reporters after coming out of the NITI Aayog meeting could not be officially discussed in the state assembly. Sikha Chatterjee, another BJP MLA, said that whatever the chief minister did had been premeditated and what she had told the journalists was “not true”.
After a heated war of words with the TMC legislators, the BJP MLAs staged a walkout, demanding that the chief minister should withdraw the statement about what had happened in the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi.
Banerjee was the only chief minister representing I.N.D.I.A. at the 9th meeting of the governing council of the NITI Aayog on Saturday as her counterparts in other states ruled by the opposition stayed away from the conclave, protesting against discrimination by the Centre against the states ruled by the parties other than the NDA constituents. She walked out of the meeting and told journalists that she had done so to register her protest as the microphone had been switched off just five minutes after she had started delivering her speech.
Banerjee’s allegation was dismissed by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who said that the chief minister of West Bengal could have asked for more time before winding up her speech as some of her counterparts had done.