Was not allowed to speak, this is humiliation: Mamata

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday claimed that she was humiliated as she was not allowed to speak at the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi. Banerjee said she has no problems if other states are allocated more funds but would protest discrimination against West Bengal. "I was not allowed to speak. They were repeatedly ringing the bell.

This is humiliation," she said while speaking to reporters at Kolkata airport after arriving from New Delhi. On Saturday, Banerjee who is also the Trinamool Congress supremo, walked out of the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the issues she raised during her brief speech, Banerjee said she referred to the proposal of constituting an Indo-Bhutan River Commission since water from Bhutan often floods regions in the northern part of West Bengal every year.

"If we lose water from the Teesta river, people of north Bengal will reel under drinking water crisis,” Banerjee said.

She alleged that she was given very little time at the NITI Aayog meet in contrast to that given to other chief ministers such as Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh. Claiming that when she was speaking at the meeting, the bell kept ringing, Banerjee said, “Rajnath Singh presided over the meeting. The PM and the Home Minister were also seated. Obviously, they asked him to do this."

She said, "before me, Naidu spoke for 20 minutes. Assam, Arunachal, Chhattisgarh, and Goa CMs spoke for 15-20 minutes. But as soon as I spoke for five minutes, they kept hitting the bell and asked me to stop. I said okay I will stop and added that if they did not want to listen, I will leave. I boycotted and left because they did not want to hear about Bengal's deprivation."