According to the official, there was no mention of a new date in a letter the state government got from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informing it of the development. He continued by saying it was unclear why the meeting had been delayed. A top state government official said here on Saturday that Union HOME Minister Amit Shah’s planned trip to West Bengal for a meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council on November 5 has been postponed.
According to the official, there was no mention of a new date in a letter the state government got from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informing it of the development. He continued by saying it was unclear why the meeting had been delayed.
“The proposed meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council has been postponed for now. It will now take place on a different date. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will not be visiting the city next week. We have no idea why it was postponed,” the bureaucrat told PTI, when contacted, referring to the MHA communication. “We have not been given another date for the meeting yet,”
The official stated that besides Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah, the council’s head, was set to meet with her counterparts from Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Sikkim to discuss a variety of topics, including those relating to inter-state boundaries.
According to the report of Indian Express “The meeting would have focused on unsettled issues among these states, including those related to boundaries, besides work for completion of the eastern freight corridor,” “When the meeting was convened in Kolkata, we felt that the Centre is giving importance to the federal structure. But we were mistaken. The Centre is so busy in establishing its power on states that it does not believe in respecting the federal structure. They are taking unitary decisions without consulting others. But we believe in unity in diversity.”
Notably, Banerjee recently skipped the “Chintan Shivir” organised by the Center at Surajkund in Haryana even though she also oversees the state’s home portfolio.
In addition to Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at the “Chintan Shivir,” where he introduced the concept of “one nation, one uniform,” which drew ire from opposition leaders.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party criticised Shah’s comments on Friday calling for a standard law-and-order strategy across all states. The TMC said that the Center was attempting to “interfere” with state government operations and that this action was intended to undermine the nation’s federal system. The party asserted that the Centre was “cornering” the states with the Opposition in power by means of central agencies. We made elaborate preparations for the meeting because we had high hopes for Shah’s visit. When it is scheduled, we hope he will attend the visit. The agenda for the meeting included talking about security, limits, and many other topics. We intended to bring up the BSF issue and their tyranny in border districts.