Making a public appearance on a day when Trinamool Congress general secretary Mukul Roy arrived here from Delhi after being summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in relation with the Saradha Group scam, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee refrained from making any comments on her party’s alleged association with the scam.
Ms. Banerjeee inaugurated a slew of projects at the city’s Nimtala Ghat crematorium here on Wednesday, hours after she reportedly met Mr. Roy at the State secretariat Nabanna.
Stepping away from her usual tirade against the CBI and the Centre, Ms. Banerjee, however, launched a veiled attack at the 34-year-long Left Front regime in the State and wondered why it took so long for the Bengal government to restore places of historical significance.
Although she was against acquisition, she said she believed in the preservation of Bengal’s tradition, culture and philosophy.
“We acquired Sister Nivedita’s house Roy Villa in Darjeeling and handed it over to the Ramakrishna Mission. Similarly, we acquired and renovated Swami Vivekananda’s house in Kolkata. We gave the Rabindra Bharati University land at Rajarhat [in the city’s eastern fringes] in exchange of Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral house at Jorasanko [in Kokata] so that we could restore it as a heritage building. Several years passed since independence yet no one ever thought of renovating the place where last rites of Ramakrishna Paramhans was held,” Ms. Banerjee said.
On a day Hindu pilgrims assembled at Gangasagar on Sagar Island in Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district to take a holy dip in the Ganges, Ms. Banerjee said the State government had built a new temple of Kapil Muni at Gangasagar.
“We are building a big gateway to Gangasagar. The priest at Kapil Muni Ashram [at Gangasagar] said that the gateway will be named Sarva Dharma Sambhava,” Ms. Banerjee said.
