The mercurial West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee surpassed herself by reportedly arriving 30 minutes late for a review meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar on cyclone Yaas.
Even after she arrived, she marked her presence for a mere 15 minutes, hurriedly went through the motions of handing over papers related to the impact of the storm before excusing herself, ostensibly to catch up on other meetings.
‘‘You wanted to meet me, that is why I have come today. Me and my Chief Secretary want to submit this report to you. Now we have a meeting at Digha, so we seek your permission to leave," the Chief Minister was quoted as saying.
A photo of the meeting, tweeted by Governor Dhankhar, showed the Prime Minister at the head of a table with BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and other officials to his left but empty chairs to his right.
Incidentally, this was the first face-to-face interface between the two leaders since the assembly elections in West Bengal. According to a news portal, she was miffed with the decision of the PMO to invite Adhikari to the review meet.
The Chief Minister is "callous, arrogant and supremely unmindful of the welfare of the people of her state" and has dealt "an unprecedented blow to propriety and federalism" with her petulant behaviour, the government said on what it perceived as a snub.
The Governor did not mince words and accused her of "boycotting" the Prime Minister. "The conduct by Mamata Banerjee, even during a natural calamity, is deplorable and reeks of low level petty politics," said sources, giving a version of events that the chief minister may not agree with.
