West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday refused to attend the meeting convened by the centre on December 24. The conference was being held to discuss ways to commemorate the birth anniversary of the revolutionary leader Shri Aurobindo on August 15 2022, as part of the 75th Independence Day celebrations.
The WB CM was apparently miffed as she was not given an opportunity to speak at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s virtual meeting with chief ministers held a day before.
The CM, who was speaking to a group of government officials, academics, and famous figures, said she would have given her advice if she had been allowed to speak at the PM’s Independence Day celebrations meeting.
“It isn’t right to politicise everything. I will not be able to attend tomorrow’s meeting since we have already charted out a number of programmes on Rishi Aurobindo already. Please write a letter to inform that I won’t be attending (the meeting),” Banerjee told Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi.
Mamata Banerjee skips PM Modi’s Covid review meetings
This is, however, not the first time Mamata Banerjee was seen throwing a tantrum for not being given adequate importance by the centre. Despite the fact that such behaviour does not fit Mamata Banerjee’s demeanour and stature, the West Bengal chief minister has done so several times in the past also.
She had, recently, skipped the virtual meeting convened by PM Narendra Modi to review the Covid situation in the country and all the vaccination drive meetings. Citing pre-scheduled election meetings as an excuse the WB CM has stayed away from these important meetings.
This is not the first time that Mamata Banerjee has given an all CM meeting a miss. She gave another all CM virtual meeting a miss in June 2020 after being visibly upset about not being invited as a speaker.
Mamata Banerjee has also been skipping meetings held by Niti Aayog, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and termed it as a ‘futile exercise’.
