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Centre not doing any work in past 6 months led to current Covid crisis: Mamata
Addressing the legislative assembly for the first time after taking charge as Bengal CM for the third consecutive term, Banerjee called for immediate electoral reforms in India.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Saturday that the Covid crisis in the country was the result of the Centre “not doing any work” in the last six months as Union ministers and leaders were visiting Bengal daily to “capture” it.
Addressing the legislative assembly for the first time after taking charge as Bengal CM for the third consecutive term, Banerjee called for immediate electoral reforms in India, while accusing the Election Commission of India of trying to rig the recently concluded polls in the state to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Since the time of TN Seshan, I have seen the ECI working to prevent rigging during polls. Now it is just the opposite. In some places rigging was done with the direct help of the poll panel. This is unfortunate and shameful. Elections need to be reformed immediately. I have been fighting for this since 1995. I am once again giving a call for this. Three nominated persons along with a few retired officers are giving transfer orders on paper chits. This should not happen. Else democracy can’t be saved,” she said.
The Trinamool Congress supremo started her address in the assembly after TMC MLA Biman Banerjee took oath as the Speaker of the assembly. BJP legislators, however, boycotted the session to protest the post-poll violence in the state, which has claimed nearly 16 lives till Thursday.
The CM also trained guns at the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying: “They aren’t ashamed that people have boycotted them. I can challenge that they (BJP) wouldn’t have won even 30 seats had ECI not directly helped them.”
Poll panel officials in Kolkata refused to comment on the chief minister’s remarks in the assembly.
Throughout the eight phase Bengal assembly elections, which concluded on April 29, the ECI has come under constant attack from the TMC for allegedly working at the behest of the BJP government at the Centre -- an allegation the poll panel has dismissed on several occasions.
Earlier in March, deputy election commissioner Sudeep Jain wrote to the TMC chief, asking her to refrain from making accusations against the poll panel.
During her address, the TMC supremo also accused the BJP of not accepting the public mandate following the debacle in assembly elections and diverting the medical oxygen produced in Bengal to other states. “They are not being able to accept the people’s mandate and that’s why they are behaving like this. This is not shameful but has also raised a big question on our democracy,” she said.
Hitting back at the CM, BJP’s state vice president, Jay Prakash Majumdar, said: “What if Maharashtra says today that vaccines produced in our state won’t be allowed to go out of the state? It cannot happen that way. The TMC should think of it from a larger perspective. This is a crisis period and the Centre is helping each and every state to fight the pandemic.”
After a fierce contest, the TMC won 213 out of the 292 seats in Bengal, while the BJP could only manage 77. Elections for two seats in Murshidabad were postponed due to the demise of candidates due to Covid-19.
