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Mamata Banerjee slams Centre over students’ stranded in Ukraine
The state government has released around 200 applications from families in West Bengal whose children or a member are stranded in the war-torn country.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday once again upped the ante against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre over the crisis faced by Indian students in war-torn Ukraine.
“I am very much worried about the lives of the Indian students held up in Ukraine. Life is very precious. Why is it taking so much time to bring them back? Why was it not done earlier?” Banerjee tweeted.
The chief minister urged the Union government to step up evacuation measures so that stranded Indian students could be evacuated at the earliest.
“I urge the Central Government that adequate number of flights be arranged immediately and all the students brought back as soon as possible,” she tweeted.
An Indian student was reported to have been hospitalised after he was shot at in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, Union minister General VK Singh had said on Friday. Earlier another Indian student was killed in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
The state government has released around 200 applications from families in West Bengal whose children or a member are stranded in the war-torn country.
“This is very unfortunate. A leader of such a stature is making such remarks. The entire country under the leadership of the Prime Minister is going all out and unitedly trying to bring back the students and all those Indians who are stuck there. Such remarks at this time may affect the will power of those stuck in Ukraine,” said Samik Bhattacharya, BJP spokesperson in West Bengal.
On Monday the chief minister wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to consider the proposal of an all-party meeting to consolidate the national resolve to come out of the crisis.
This is, however, not the first time that she has attacked the Centre over the students’ crisis in Ukraine.
“I saw in the media that the Prime Minister was aware (of the developments that led to the war) at least three to four months ago. Then why didn’t the government bring back the students at least three months ago? This is a fault. This is negligence and negligence is a crime,” Banerjee told the media in Kolkata before leaving for Varanasi on March 2.
Again in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, where she campaigned for the Samajwadi Party (SP) and its allies on March 3, she had slammed the Centre.
“I don’t want to criticize the government, especially when it comes to external affairs. But I have seen that because of some gap in coordination and political dizziness, we are lagging behind. Our students are stuck out there,” she had earlier said.
