Mamata likely to meet PM next week

To discuss the increasing financial debt of West Bengal

March 03, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 07:13 am IST - Kolkata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 9, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has told The Hindu .

Ms Banerjee will leave for Delhi on the evening of March 8.

“We can confirm that the Chief Minister is reaching Delhi on Sunday, but the official confirmation of the meeting should come from the Prime Minister’s Office,” was the guarded reply of a member of the CMO, when asked about the date of the meeting.

Ms. Banerjee will be the last Chief Minister to meet Mr. Modi, ever since the BJP came to power last year. While Chief Ministers of other States, including the Communist Chief Minister of Tripura Manik Sarkar met the Prime Minister to discuss issues relating to the development of their respective States, the `Trinamool chairperson will meet the Prime Minister for the first time.

The meeting will take place in the backdrop of the increasing financial debt of Bengal, which is slowly becoming the biggest headache for Ms Banerjee and her party. The debt burden has recently touched 2.5 lakh crore.

But a week before her meeting with the Prime Minister, Ms. Banerjee had dubbed the Centre’s announcement of special financial assistance to Bengal as “bluff.”

“No package has been provided to us. This is total bluff. Previously we used to get 61.81 per cent of tax revenue. Now that has been hiked only to 62 percent,” said Ms. Banerjee at an event in the city on Monday.

Stressing that the Centre deducts Rs. 28,000 crore annually from the State’s income for the payment of the debt incurred by the Left Front government, she said, “We are not asking for anything extra. Just stop taking away our revenue.”

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government inherited almost rupees 2 lakh crore of debt incurred by the previous Left Front government. It has now crossed 2.5 lakh crore in the last three and half years of the TMC rule.

Ms Banerjee’s key demand is a debt waiver and moratorium on the payment of interest. She made similar demands when TMC was a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

However, observers say it would impossible for any Government at the Centre to meet her demands entirely as borrowings are largely private in nature.

Observers also feel that the compulsion of Ms Banerjee’s politics, distances her from Mr Modi and the BJP.

The State has about 30 per cent Muslims and Ms Banerjee’s perceived closeness to the BJP may antagonize the minorities affecting her prospects in the elections.

But after three and half years in power, Ms Banerjee lost an Assembly by-election due to consolidation of the Hindu votes.

Minority factor

Moreover, the Muslims in Bengal are not too reluctant in some pockets, like North 24 Paragans or Birbhum, to join the BJP.

The combination of these internal equations with growing fissures in Bengal’s economy has finally compelled the Chief Minister to seek an appointment with Mr Modi.

The move, however, is also overtly political as Ms Banerjee and Mr Modi publicly challenged each other in 2014 using language and gestures which had surprised many.

A year later, Ms Banerjee is travelling to Delhi to meet the Prime Minister and to put the ball of Bengal’s development in his court. Needless to say, their choice of words and body language would be monitored closely by the media, on both sides.

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