West Bengal Governor K N Tripathi yesterday sternly cautioned against “defaming” and “letting down” the Indian Army following Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s allegation that soldiers extorted money from truck drivers during their deployment at toll plazas.
Asked about Banerjee’s accusation, Tripathi said: “Every person should take care in making allegation against a responsible organisation like the Indian Army. Don’t let down the army. Don’t defame the army.”
Responding to Tripathi’s caution, Banerjee accused him of speaking in the “tone of the central government” on the issue of army deployment at toll plazas in the state.
“The governor is speaking in the voice of the central Government!! He was not in the city for about 8 days,” she tweeted.
Terming the governor’s comments as “unfortunate”, Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said Tripathi should have checked the details of recent developments in the state before commenting.
“Before making statements, all details should have been checked. It is very unfortunate,” said Banerjee, who spent Thursday night at the state secretariat and stayed there for 36 hours protesting against the deployment of the army at toll plazas in the state allegedly without informing her government - an issue that snowballed into a major row causing disruptions in parliament.
Banerjee questioned if it was an “army coup”, drawing a stinging condemnation from the central government which said the remark showed her “political frustration”.
The central government and the army said too much was being read into a routine exercise.
Meanwhile, a Trinamool Congress delegation, yesterday afternoon met the governor and submitted a memorandum protesting against the deployment of the army at several toll plazas.
“We have informed him in detail about how the army was deployed at 18 places in West Bengal without the permission of the state government,” state Education and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee said after meeting the governor.
Echoing party Banerjee, the Trinamool leader criticised the governor for his comments on the issue.
“It is unbecoming of a governor to make such a statement. People might assume that the governor is favouring a specific political party. We are not taking it in a good spirit,” he said.
The Trinamool leader clarified that while the state government has the highest respect for the Indian Army, it strongly denounces the central government’s ploy of using the army in a wrong way.
“We have the highest degree of respect for the Indian Army but if the central government tries to break the federal structure of a state by using the army as a shield, we have to protest against that,” Chatterjee said.
In the Lok Sabha, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the army was conducting a routine exercise in Kolkata. The Eastern Command showed papers detailing the correspondence between the army and the local police on the issue and said the state government and the police knew about it in advance.
Earlier, federal minister Babul Supriyo said Bengalis all over the world “hang their heads in shame” over Banerjee’s insinuation and wondered how “low the politics could go”.
He accused the chief minister of doing “such PR activities” in a “desperate attempt” to position the Trinamool Congress as a national party.
“All Bengalis hang their heads in shame. At a time when the army is fighting every day for us, she is accusing them of extorting money from trucks. I am very sad and my head is down with shame as such comments are coming from West Bengal, that too from an elected chief minister,” Supriyo said.
“Look at social media, Bengalis all across the globe hang their heads in shame. How low the politics could go?” he asked.
On Friday, Trinamool Congress legislators and ministers staged a protest outside the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the army.