Mamata Banerjee skips review meeting with PM Modi, WB Guv accuses her of 'boycotting constitution'

Banerjee met PM Modi at Kalaikunda Air Base in Bengal's West Midnapore district Friday, where the latter arrived to assess the damage caused by Cyclone Yaas.

The Bengal chief minister was scheduled to attend a cyclone damage review with PM Modi but she left after handing him a report.

After meeting PM, Banerjee tweeted: "After having review meetings in Hingalganj & Sagar, I met the Hon’ble PM in Kalaikunda & apprised him regarding the post-cyclone situation in WB. The disaster report has been handed over for his perusal. I’ve proceeded now to review the relief & restoration work at Digha."

Speaking to the media, Banerjee informed what she told PM Modi: "You wanted to meet me that is why I have come today. Me and my Chief Secretary want to submit this report to you. Now we have a meeting at Digha so we seek your permission to leave."

This was their first in-person meet after the fierce face-offs during the West Bengal Assembly election.

Banerjee's skipping of the review meeting did not go well with the Centre with the latter accusing the Bengal CM of making the Prime Minister wait for half an hour.

Even Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar tweeted an image of his meeting with PM Modi showing empty chairs on the right and stating that CM Mamata Banerjee and her officials did not attend the scheduled meet. He even accused her of "boycotting" the meeting.

"At the Review Meet by PM #CycloneYaas to assess damage caused. CM and officials @MamataOfficial did not participate. Such boycott bot in consonance with constitution and federalism. Certainly by such actions neither public interest nor interest of state has been served," Dhankar wrote.

Disapproving Banjerjee's move, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Jagat Prakash Nadda in a tweet said that while PM Modi believes in cooperative federalism, the way Mamata Banerjee behaved today reflected her petty politics.

She has disappointed the people of Bengal, Nadda accused.

"Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji considers the policy of cooperative alliance as inviolable and the party has been actively working with all the Chief Ministers irrespective of party to help the people. But in an unexpected way @MamataOfficial 's policy and petty politics have again disappointed the people of Bengal," he wrote in a Bengali tweet.

"The conduct by Mamata Banerjee, even during a natural calamity, is deplorable and reeks of low-level petty politics," NDTV quoting sources in the Centre reported.

"When PM arrived to attend the review meet, there was no one from the West Bengal government. Both the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary were present in the same premises and YET they did not come to receive the PM," the channel said quoting central government sources.

The Chief Minister is "callous, arrogant and supremely unmindful of the welfare of the people of her state" and has dealt "an unprecedented blow to propriety and federalism" with her petulant behaviour, NDTV quoted the central government as saying.

Meanwhile, PM Modi undertook an aerial survey in West Bengal and Odisha to review the situation in the wake of Cyclone Yaas.