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Mamata calls on PM Modi, asks him to rethink on CAA
In what might be called a balancing act, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a one-on-one conversation at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata, but then proceeded to continue her protest against CAA in the middle of the state capital.
Kolkata: In what might be called a balancing act, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a one-on-one conversation at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata, but then proceeded to continue her protest against CAA in the middle of the state capital.
The CM dubbed her 13-minute meet with the PM as a "constitutional responsibility" and "courtesy", but that didn't stop her from seeking a withdrawal of the contentious law, which was notified by Modi's government late on Friday, during the meeting.
The TMC defined the meeting as nothing but a "government to government" affair.
Banerjee's meeting with the PM came a day after she refused to attend a Congress-led meeting of opposition parties over CAA and NRC.
The TMC chief has drawn flak from the opposition for boycotting the scheduled 13 January meet in Delhi convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Later, at a function to inaugurate the renovated currency building in Kolkata, Modi, who is in Kolkata on a two-day trip to attend the sesquicentenary of Kolkata Port Trust, chose to invoke Bengali icons.
The PM added that he wanted to set up a museum called "Biplabi Bharat" in Kolkata that will have place for Bengali revolutionaries like Netaji, Aurobindo Ghosh, among others.
His statement came even as he faced protests across the city and near his programme venue.
Both shared the stage at the Kolkata Port Trust Event later in the evening.
Banerjee also clarified after the Raj Bhavan meet that she has always made it a point to welcome and meet the President and Prime Minister when they are in Kolkata. "It is my constitutional duty to meet the PM.
I sent my minister Firhad Hakim to receive the PM at the airport. I raised the issues of the financial dues of my state. We are yet to get Rs 28,000 crore dues and also the funds for cyclone Bulbul.
Banerjee added that she had voiced her "disapproval" of CAA, the proposed NRC and NPR to the PM. "I don't know if it was right on my part to say to our guest, but I said that we were all against the new Act and NRC.
I have requested him to reconsider and withdraw the Act. "He told me that he was here to attend some programmes and he might talk about this once he goes back to Delhi," the Chief Minister added.
