The Trinamul Congress has drawn up plans to strengthen the narrative built by chief minister Mamata Banerjee that the saffron ecosystem and the central government were apathetic about the sufferings of the people who had been affected by the mini-tornado that had cut a swathe through vast areas of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts on March 31.
“Our party supremo reached ground zero within seven hours of the natural disaster and assured the affected people that the state administration would make all efforts to alleviate their sufferings. Senior Trinamul leaders, including Siliguri mayor Gautam Deb, stayed in the affected villages for hours, along with our workers,” Mahua Gope, the Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president, said here on Monday.
“The BJP was nowhere to be seen and even the Prime Minister, who visited the region (north Bengal) twice in the past seven days, didn’t bother to go to any affected villages or speak to the people,” she added.
The storm had killed four persons, injured around 160 and damaged at least 5,000 homes, prompting the chief minister to rush to the spot the same day. She landed in Bagdogra at night and visited the hospital, affected villages and the relief camp and called on the relatives of deceased people. The following day, she reached Alipurduar and camped in north Bengal for four days.
However, BJP leaders were not seen in any area. Around 13 hours after Mamata’s visit, Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, visited some affected villages.
In her election rallies, Mamata questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the disaster in his address at a public meeting in Cooch Behar on April 4.
“It seems he has forgotten about it,” she said, highlighting that the state government had sought permission from the Election Commission of India to build 5,000 houses in the affected areas.
“Till now, the EC has not granted permission. People are spending nights in
relief camps and makeshift shelters. We fail to understand why they are not
giving permission when the state is ready to spend funds on the construction of houses,” Mamata said at one of
her rallies.
Further, Trinamul leaders, including Mamata and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, have said if the Centre had released funds for the housing scheme, the affected people would
have concrete roofs and the scale of the damage would have been less.
In Jalpaiguri, Trinamul functionaries said on Monday that during their election campaign, they drove home the point that only Mamata Banerjee and her party stood by the affected people.
“There are a number of BJP lawmakers from the district but none stood by the affected residents. We are telling people that they only make tall claims and hollow promises unlike us,” said a Trinamul leader.
He said the storm had changed the political discourse in the Jalpaiguri Lok Sabha constituency and the neighbouring Alipurduar and Cooch Behar segments.
“People have realised that the BJP did nothing for them after the natural disaster. We want to see what clarifications the BJP leaders give when people ask about their absence,” the leader added.
Jalpaiguri district BJP president Bapi Goswami said Modi had on Sunday offered condolences to the families of the deceased and the injured people.
“The model code of conduct is in force and no political leader can make any promise. Even then, our state president Sukanta Majumdar has
contributed to the relief through an NGO. Our workers helped the affected villagers,” he said.