Bengal beautifully followed ICMR guidelines: TMC over lower COVID-19 testing allegations

When asked about the alleged lower number of testing in the state, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien said during an online press conference, "West Bengal has beautifully followed all the ICMR guidelines.When they changed those revised guidelines, we followed them too."

"Yesterday NICED director said many of the kits sent to West Bengal were faulty," he added.

Countering the claims of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the state had a lack of testing kits, director of ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here, Shanta Dutta, on Apr 13 had confirmed that there was no shortage of Covid-19 test kits in their lab, but they were not getting enough samples from the state for test.

TMC Lok Sabha leader Sudip Bandopadhyaya said in the press conference around 600 testing will be done from Tuesday as the state gears up for rapid-testing.

Amid the surge in positive COVID-19 cases in West Bengal though the tally is much lesser than other states, a political blame-game has raged between the ruling TMC and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the saffron party-led central government sent a two Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) to seven districts of West Bengal for making spot-assessment of the COVID-19 situation. 

The seven districts which have been listed for the visit are Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas, East Midnapore, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Kalimpong.

Instead of whole-heartedly welcoming the teams to the state, Chief Minister Banerjee preferred to give vent of her opposition in a tweet saying, "We welcome all constructive support & suggestions, especially from the Central Govt in negating the #Covid19 crisis. However, the basis on which Centre is proposing to deploy IMCTs in select districts across India including few in WB under Disaster Mgmt Act 2005 is unclear."

In the otherwise restrained tweet, Banerjee has also cited the violation of the federal structure of the country by sending the team to her state. 

Another tweet by the BJP's political foe reads, "I urge both Honb’le Prime Minister @NarendraModi Ji & Home Minister @AmitShah Ji to share the criterion used for this. Until then I am afraid, we would not be able to move ahead on this as without valid reasons this might not be consistent with the spirit of federalism."

The tussle between the state and the Centre snowballed in the evening with West Bengal's Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha clearly objecting to the tour of the medical teams in the seven districts including four Coronavirus hotspots- Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore- listed by the Centre few days ago.

"We will ask them (the two IMCT teams) the reason for their visit to the state. If they can't satisfy us, we won't let them visit the districts," Sinha said in a press conference at state secretariat Nabanna.

Later Banerjee even went to the extent of writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing her grievance against the Centre for sending the teams to the eastern state without prior intimation.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Banerjee wrote: "While I appreciate the pro-activeness  shown by the Central Government in sending their teams to West Bengal, the same was done without prior intimation and hence is a breach of established protocol."

(Images: AITC Facebook and Avishek Mitra/IBNS)