Avoid confrontation with Centre to combat COVID-19 crisis: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to Mamata Banerjee

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Kolkata: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday (April 21) requested Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to cooperate with the centre to combat the corona crisis and avoid confrontation. This comes a day after the Trinamool Congress supremo hit out at the Centre for sending teams to the state to assess the implementation of the ongoing lockdown, without prior confirmation.

Taking to Twitter, the Bengal Governor wrote, "My appeal to all: Support government @MamataOfficial to contain and combat corona curse. My request to CM Mamata Banerjee to synergetically cooperate with the Central Team @PMOIndia to wean away the miseries of people. Cooperation and not confrontation between Centre and State must."

On April 20, Mamata said the two inter-ministerial central teams (IMCTs) did not contact the West Bengal government before arriving to the state, which was supposed to look after the logistic arrangements on their arrival.

Banerjee said the basis on which the Centre proposed to deploy its teams was unclear, adding, "We would not be able to move ahead on this as without valid reasons, this might not be consistent with the spirit of federalism." She said these observations of the Centre were devoid of any facts and do not lend credibility to its claim.

It showed that the selection of districts and the observations were made unilaterally and it was nothing but a figment of imagination and unfortunate, the chief minister said, adding that her government was proactively enforcing the lockdown measures as notified by the Centre and maintaining a close liaison with the Union ministries concerned.
Mamata also pointed out that her state had announced a lockdown before the Centre did so.

Six IMCTs have been constituted by the Centre to assess the situation regarding the violations of lockdown, social distancing norms and attack on doctors in states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and West Bengal, and submit a report to the government.

In Bengal, seven districts which are under the radar are: Kolkata, Howrah, North 24-Parganas, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, East Medinipur and Jalpaiguri.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, IMCTs will focus on compliance and implementation of lockdown measures as per the guidelines, supply of essential commodities, social distancing, preparedness of health infrastructure, the safety of health professionals and conditions of the relief camps for labour and poor people.