Kolkata, Feb 19 (IANS) At a time when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is facing nationwide criticisms for her comments describing Maha Kumbh at Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj as “Mrityu Kumbh”, a senior member of the state cabinet has finally come forward in defence of the Chief Minister over the matter.
The senior member of the West Bengal cabinet, Manas Ranjan Bhunia, said the Chief Minister’s statement is being picked up selectively and out of the contest.
“No one in the state government had made any attempts to malign the Maha Kumbh. The Chief Minister too had not criticised the event. She has spoken about the loss of life because of the administrative mismanagement there. In addition, a central report has reported high-level faecal bacteria in the river water at Prayagraj,” Bhunia claimed.
According to him, the manner in which the bodies of the stampede victims from West Bengal at Prayagraj were sent back in coffins shows the utter mismanagement of the local administration there.
“There were no post-mortem reports. Even the reasons for deaths were not stated clearly. All these were because of the utter mismanagement on the part of the local administration there. The West Bengal Chief Minister always practises tolerance. The atmosphere of harmony that she had created in West Bengal should be a lesson for many,” Bhunia said.
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress’ state general secretary Kunal Ghosh, on Wednesday, claimed that the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, should apologise in public if he is unable to prove allegations that the ruling party has links with terrorist groups based out of Jammu and Kashmir and neighbouring Bangladesh.
“He is in BJP now and so he is now maligning the party which gave him bigger political recognition. He never feels the pinch of conscience. He will be defeated from his own constituency of Nandigram in 2026,” Ghosh added.
–IANS
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