Railways Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee called on West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan at the Raj Bhavan here on Saturday and discussed matters ranging from the Railway budget to the political violence that has been rocking the State since the Lok Sabha elections last year.
They also discussed compensation to the families of the 24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles who were killed in a Maoist attack on the Silda camp in Paschim Medinipur district on February 15.
This was Ms. Banerjee’s first meeting with Mr. Narayanan since the former National Security Adviser took charge on January 24.
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“I have been trying to meet the Governor for quite some time now, but since he was not here I could not meet him,” she told reporters after the meeting.
Ms. Banerjee said she believed that Mr. Narayanan was a “capable Governor” and “given his experience as a former NSA, he will discharge his responsibilities in a right manner.”
She said Mr. Narayanan praised the Railway budget, while she thanked him for visiting the bereaved families of the EFR jawans at Salua on Friday.
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Pointing to the need for providing employment to a member each of the families that lost their men during the combat in the State since 2004, Ms. Banerjee said she told the Governor that she was ready to offer them employment in the Railway Protection Force (RPF). “I believe that the families of the jawans who lost their lives during combat in the region since 2004 should be compensated well and provided with jobs. I told the Governor that if the State government failed to do the needful, I promised to give them jobs in the RPF.”
She also took up with the Governor the issue of “state-sponsored terrorism” in West Bengal since the Lok Sabha elections. “I told him about the situation where the Chief Minister openly threatens the Opposition, where the Ministers and CPI(M) leaders carry weapons and kill people in the name of a joint operation to cling onto power… there is an armoury of illegal weapons in the State. They should be taught governance, or else they do not have any right to continue in power,” Ms. Banerjee said.
She alleged that her party had information that influential CPI(M) leaders were illegally transferring government land in their names in the past few months.