Kolkata: Hours after his retirement, former West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay received a show-cause notice from the BJP-led Central government over his absence during the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 28 at Kalaikunda.
Notably, in the letter, Centre has invoked Section 51(b) of the Disaster Management Act against Alapan Bandyopadhyay and asked him to respond to the notice within three days, failing which a FIR will be filed against him.
According to West Bengal state secretariat sources, Alapan Bandyopadhyay will not reply to the letter as he is no longer in the service.
Amidst slugfest between the Central and the State government, Alapan retired from his services on Monday--the scheduled date of his retirement.
Talking to Free Press Journal, poll analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said that more than the constitutional posts the BJP and the TMC leaders are looking at each other as party leaders for which the tussle is being held.
“Mamata Banerjee is looking at Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as BJP leaders and not Prime Minister and Home Minister and Modi-Shah is also looking at Mamata as TMC supremo than West Bengal Chief Minister. Moreover, the chief secretary is the highest level bureaucrat and it was his duty to abide to the protocol and attend Prime Minister’s meeting,” claimed Biswanath.
Meanwhile, the according to sources of the BJP-led central government, it has given a nine-point rejoinder to the TMC government for giving ‘false statements’.
“Mamata Banerjee has purposely boycotted the meeting. Initially she had agreed to attend the meet but later when she got to know that BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari will be present at the meet she didn’t attend the Yaas review meet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t give her permission to leave the meet as she claims,” said the sources.
On the other hand, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar also took to Twitter and slammed Mamata Banerjee for her ‘false claims’ and wrote ‘May 28 to be the Black Day of federal structure’.
The sources also slammed Mamata’s claim that she was kept waiting for 20 minutes before submitting the review report to Prime Minister.
“Maintaining the protocol she should have come earlier as everyone does so when PM visits. PM landed at Kalaikunda at 1.59 pm. Mamata Banerjee landed at Kalaikunda after the PM at 2.10 pm. It is clear that Modi was kept waiting by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,” added the central government’s sources.
