The saffron ecosystem on Monday tried its best to deny the Trinamul Congress any advantage in the relief, rehabilitation and restoration operations in areas battered by the storm on Sunday.
Referring to the 13-hour gap between the arrivals of Mamata Banerjee and Suvendu Adhikari in the affected areas and the absence of Sukanta Majumdar, who was in north Bengal, Trinamul tossed several uncomfortable questions at the BJP.
Pushed on the back foot, the BJP tried to spin its own narrative and claimed that they were doing their best to stand by the affected lot.
Dipak Barman, the Falakata MLA who is the party’s convener in north Bengal, said after the disaster, their workers had been to the affected spots and helped the people, without violating the MCC which is in force.
“The Prime Minister expressed his concern, the home minister spoke with the chief minister and Suvendu Adhikari was here today. The chief minister and some other Trinamul leaders are roaming around… what’s the use? What has to be done will be done by the Centre,” he said.
Though Barman tried to justify the delay and absence of party workers on the ground, a section of BJP leaders raised questions about it.
“When the chief minister was roaming around in the affected areas till 2am, why can’t our leaders and workers go to those places? There is no doubt that we lagged behind Trinamul in reaching out to people, especially in north Bengal where we are looking forward to retaining the seven seats we had won in 2019,” said a senior BJP functionary of the state.
Since yesterday night, as BJP learnt that the chief minister will reach the affected areas within seven hours of the disaster, the party got into a scurried mode.
That the saffron camp got nudged over Mamata’s move was evident as senior BJP functionaries, ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Union home minister Amit Shah to party’s national president JP Nadda, made elaborate posts in the social media since last night and till this morning.
On the other hand, a host of Trinamul leaders other than Mamata, including Siliguri mayor Gautam Deb, Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority chairman Sourav Chakraborty, Jalpaiguri’s chairperson Papia Pal and her deputy Saikat Chatterjee, moved into different areas of Sadar and Mainaguri blocks of the district, speaking to the affected people.
On Monday, minister Chandrima Bhattacharya reached Mainaguri.