Kolkata: The Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Wednesday, questioned the initial reluctance of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to give her reactions on the devastating fire at a six-story hotel building in central Kolkata, which left several people dead.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through his official X handle, announced compensation for the dead and injured at 9.30 a.m. And the Chief Minister till then was so reluctant,” Adhikari said while speaking to the media persons during a religious rally of ‘Sanatani’ Hindus at Contai in East Midnapore district.
The Chief Minister, with almost her entire cabinet, is at Digha, also in East Midnapore district, for the inauguration of Lord Jagannath Temple, which has been modelled after the iconic Shree Jagannath Dham temple at Puri in Odisha.
In fact, the sequence of events throughout the day shows that the Chief Minister’s first reaction on the matter surfaced through a message on her official X handle posted at around 10.30 a.m., which is almost an hour after the compensation announcement through the official X handle of the Prime Minister’s Office was made.
In that first message, although the Chief Minister expressed condolences over the deaths due to fire, there was no mention of compensation from the state government.
The announcement for compensation was made in her second X message posted at around 12.30 p.m., where she announced ex gratia for the dead and the injured in amounts exactly what the PMO had already announced.
LoP Adhikari also accused administrative negligence with regard to disseminating information about the hotel fire, in which the majority of the dead and injured were people coming to the city from other states.
“There is no helpline number as yet. The Chief Minister has shifted the entire administration to Digha. Hence, there are so many administrative failures in handling the mishap and follow-up actions,” the Leader of the Opposition said.
He also said that the Chief Minister’s only goal is to ensure votes, either through dole politics or through minority appeasement.
“Only she is responsible for such mismanagement, since without her nod, nothing moves in the administration. The area where the fire broke out has many such buildings which do not follow the minimum fire security norms,” Adhikari said.
(IANS)
