'Ready to touch PM's feet.. but I should not be insulted': Mamata Banerjee on meeting row

New Delhi: In an escalation of the ongoing face-off between the Centre and the West Bengal government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government accusing PMO of spreading “fake and one-sided news” in the media.

The blowout was a result of tussle over a review meeting on Cyclone Yaas where the CM purportedly kept the Prime Minister waiting.

Banerjee, in a virual press conference in the state capital, claimed that the PM's office was being used to tarnish her image. "They humiliated me by running one-sided information circulated by PMO. Please don’t humiliate me,” she said.

On the issue of her decision to skip review meeting with Modi on cyclone Yaas devastation, she said, “I had other meetings to attend, and I took PM’s permission before leaving."

"By the time were reached the place where the PM-CM meeting was to be held, we found out that the PM had already arrived and that there was a meeting going on. We were asked to wait outside, told that there will be no entry at the moment because a meeting is going on. We waited patiently for a while. Then, when we asked again, we were told that no one can enter for the next one hour," she said.

Later when she reached the conference hall, the PM was in a meeting with the Honourable Governor, central leaders and even some MLAs of the opposition party, Banerjee said.

"This was clearly against the brief. It was supposed to be only a PM-CM meeting. So, we decided to submit our report to the PM and then with the Prime Minister's permission we went to Digha. I sought the Prime Minister's permission three times," she said. 

Further, she said, "Bengal is my priority and I will never put it in danger. I will remain a security guard for the people here. If the Prime Minister asks me to touch his feet for the welfare of Bengal people, I am ready to do that; but I should not be insulted." 

She also appealed to PM Modi to end political vendetta and, withdraw the order recalling West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay and allow him to work for COVID-infected. The Centre on Friday night sought services of the Chief Secretary and asked the state government to relieve the officer immediately.

The face-to-face encounter on Friday was the first between PM Modi and Banerjee since the April-May assembly election that the Chief Minister's Trinamool Congress party won, despite a no-holds-barred campaign marked by extensive poaching and coarse rhetoric.