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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee skipped a review meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, reportedly miffed by the presence of her former protege, now rival and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari The meeting was to assess the impact of Cyclone Yaas in the State.
Banerjee however claimed she was “not aware” of the PM’s schedule and had her “own survey plans across affected districts.” She has claimed a financial package of ₹20,000 crore for restoration of affected areas like Digha and Sunderbans.
Initial relief
The Centre, meanwhile, has announced an immediate financial assistance of ₹1,000 crore.
Of this, ₹500 crore would go to Odisha; while the remaining would be for West Bengal and Jharkhand.
This announcement came hours after the Prime Minister chaired two review meetings on Friday – one in Bhubaneswar, which was attended by the Odisha CM, Naveen Patnaik; while the second one was held at Kalaikunda in Paschim Midnapore district in West Bengal.
Earlier, PM Modi undertook an aerial survey of the cyclone affected areas in Bhadrak and Balasore of Odisha, and Purba Medinipur in West Bengal.
Odishahas not claimed any “immediate financial assistance”. The Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, put out a series of tweet saying that they did not “wish to burden” the Centre at a time when the country was reeling under a pandemic.
On Wednesday, May 27, tropical cyclone Yaas made a landfall near Dhamra port in Odisha and subsequently moved northwards severely impacting coastal districts of the state and the neighbouring one of West Bengal.
BJP criticises
Union Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan took to Twitter to ask, if “Mamata-didi would run away” everytime seeing Suvendu Adhikari. He called it a “great insult to the mandate given by the people”.
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, and Union Minister of State, Debashree Chowdhury were also present at the review meet. No other official from the West Bengal government was present.
The WB CM arrived at the Kalaikunda meeting and handed over a preliminary report.
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