Mamata writes to party leaders about Centre’s indifference to non-BJP ruled states

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister and All India Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has written to all non-BJP leaders pointing out the BJP-led Centre’s indifferent attitude towards non-BJP state governments and leaders.

In a personal letter to Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, MK Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Hemant Soren, Arvind Kejriwal, Naveen Patnaik, Jagan Reddy, KS Reddy, Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and Dipankar Bhattacharya, Banerjee alleges West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was behaving like a BJP worker.

“In State after State government by non-BJP parties, the Centre has been creating problems … by misusing the office of the Governor. In many states, including in West Bengal, Governors have been functioning like BJP’s office bearers, and not as neutral Constitutional authorities,” she wrote.

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Citing the example of the Delhi government, she said, “the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act is a direct attack on the Ferderal Structure of the Indian Republic.”

She also accused the Centre of using the enforcement directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation and other institutions “vindictively” against leaders and functionaries of non-BJP parties.

Banerjee has stated that the Narendra Modi government was deliberately withholding transfer of funds to non-BJP ruled states leading to problems in implementing schemes.

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Further, the firebrand leader accused the Modi government of making the process complicated for the states to place demands for central funds by replacing the planning commission with the “toothless” Niti Ayog.

In another allegation, Banerjee said that the BJP has amassed huge resources from “questionable sources” and was using those resources to destablise non-BJP governments and defection in non-BJP parties.

She also took a dig at the privatisation policy of the country’s assets and described it as “an attack on democracy”.

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Banerjee summed up saying that the relationship between non-BJP rules states and the Centre had never soured so much like the present and attributed it to the “authoritarian conduct” of the prime minister.