West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has blamed the Centre for floods in West Bengal’s lower Damodar region alleging that the devastation was caused after 5 lakh cusecs of water was released from Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), controlled dams – a scale of hitherto unwitnessed.
The chief minister said that this is a man-made flood, the worst they have witnessed in the lower Damodar since 2009. She further said it has severely impacted over 5 million people in Bengal. Despite repeated warnings, the Centre has ignored the technical, mechanical and managerial failures plaguing DVC. If this gross negligence continues, Bengal will be forced to sever ties with DVC.
Assam Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma hit out at both Ms Banerjee and the JMM government in Jharkhand. ‘The people of Bengal are suffering from floods due to the failure of the Bengal government and I am surprised that Mamata Didi is not venting her anger on her officers, but on the people of Jharkhand. She is teaching a lesson to the people of Jharkhand by sealing the state’s border, and the honourable Chief Minister of Jharkhand is silent,” Mr Sarma posted in Hindi on X on Friday.
He claimed the Jharkhand government was maintaining silence despite the BJP government at the Centre saying the state was not at fault. ‘The people of Jharkhand should think whether they want to give a chance again to a party which is not able to protect the dignity of its state,” Mr Sarma added. BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, accused the Trinamool Congress chief of trying to divert attention from the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata last month and the protests that followed with her threat to sever ties with the DVC.
‘Is she making such comments fully aware of their implications, or for public consumption, given the rising protests against the rape-murder of a doctor at RG Kar hospital? The situation is revealing the misdeeds of her party, the TMC, and her government’s health department. If Mamata Banerjee cuts ties with the DVC, eight districts will lose power. Does she not realise that DVC-run power plants supply electricity to a significant portion of South Bengal,” he asked.
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