In a forceful and articulate defence of West Bengal’s position on both its COVID-19 related health care differences and the state’s financial differences with the Central Govt, Amit Mitra, the state Finance Minister, has said: “West Bengal will not accept anything against federal principles.” He added “we will not be throttled.”
In a 50 mt interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Dr Mitra, who is also West Bengal’s Industry minister, MSME minister and IT minister, said that the decision to send 2 Inter-Ministerial Central teams to his state without consulting the state govt was a breach of protocol because it was “not in keeping with the spirit of cooperation (needed) in a federal polity.” After the “courteous and gracious” cooperation shown by Mamata Banerjee in the video conference with the Prime Minister it was also rude to inform her of the decision to send the teams 3 hours after their arrival in the state.
Dr Mitra told The Wire the state govt could not understand why districts like Kalimpong or Jalpaiguri had been chosen. Neither in terms of the number of cases nor in terms of the rate of increase – the 2 criteria specified by Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal – was their inclusion justified. Gujarat and Ahmedabad, in particular, had far larger numbers and a greater rate of increase but were not chosen.
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