In a shrewd political move, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday appointed her Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay as her special advisor soon after he retired from service. Bandyopadhyay was ordered by the Narendra Modi government to report to Delhi on Monday days after the Bengal CM was accused of insulting the prime minister with her snub during the latter’s visit to the state.
HK Dwivedi has been appointed as the new Bengal Chief Secretary.
Terming the Modi government’s diktat as ‘vendetta,’ Banerjee had said that she had ‘never seen such cruel behavior.’ Just because they want to attack the Chief Minister, they attack the Chief Secretary. You have added insult to injury.’
The firebrand Bengal chief minister had questioned why the Centre had not cared to consult the state government before deciding Bandyopadhyay’s fate. “Why? Because you lost? Because you don’t like Mamata Banerjee. The Centre may not be aware that he has superannuated and his services are not available for the Centre. I have decided we need his service for the Covid pandemic. For Covid and for Cyclone Yaas, he must continue his service to the poor, the state, the country, the affected people,” NDTV quoted Banerjee as saying.
Earlier, Banerjee had written a letter to PM Modi saying that she was unable to release her Chief Secretary. “The government of Bengal cannot release, and is not releasing, its Chief Secretary at this critical hour, on the basis of our understanding that the earlier order of extension, issued after lawful consultation in accordance with applicable laws, remains operational and valid,” she had stated in her letter.
The controversy was triggered after Banerjee refused to attend a meeting chaired by Modi to review the cyclone situation. Modi had visited Odisha and West Bengal and held review meetings in both states in the aftermath of cyclone Yaas. While Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik was present in his meeting with Modi, Banerjee had reportedly decided to skip the review meeting in her state. According to some reports, the Bengal CM had kept Modi waiting for nearly 30 minutes before turning up for the meeting. And even after she arrived for the meet, reports claimed, Banerjee handed over some papers to Modi and said that she had other important meetings to attend before storming out of the room.
As for Mamata Banerjee, she was incensed by the presence of her former aide Suvendu Adhikari, now a BJP MLA, in the meeting. According to her, the PM had already breached an established protocol by inviting an MLA from his party to attend a meeting between a state’s CM and the prime minister.
The BJP had fared badly in the just-concluded assembly polls as it failed to stop Trinamool Congress from winning another landslide. The Hindutva party could only win 70-odd seats in the 294-seat state assembly.