Army deployment in West Bengal deliberate move by Centre to humiliate Mamata Banerjee, says Mayawati

New Delhi: Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Friday dubbed the military deployment in West Bengal as a deliberate move by the Centre to humiliate Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

• "The Central government is trying to humiliate Mamata Banerjee as she has been raising her voice against demonetisation."
• "This is not correct, our party should strongly condemn the move and the Central government should not do this."
• She said the move to deploy army without the state government's permission was an attack on the federal structure of the country.

 

• "This is unfair to the West Bengal Chief Minister. This step is a grave attack on the Constitution. One should not politicize the army."

Bengal CM ke sath zyatti ho rahi hai.Bhartiya Samvidhan par bahut bada hamla hai ye. Sena ka rajneetikaran nahi karna chahye: Mayawati in RS pic.twitter.com/QtvtXOpCaR

— ANI (@ANI_news) December 2, 2016

Raising the issue, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad sought a clarification from the Centre and asked as to why the state's rights are being impinged on. 

The centre must clarify it, in fact PM must clarify as to why state's rights are being impinged on: GN Azad in RS pic.twitter.com/4720ptJMHa — ANI (@ANI_news) December 2, 2016

Major General Sunil Yadav called such allegations baseless and stated that army formations are an annual data collection exercise. 

This is an exercise carried out for our operational purposes: Major General Sunil Yadav on West Bengal army deployment pic.twitter.com/pTyZ0apSBy

— ANI (@ANI_news) December 2, 2016

The annual exercise are carried out for collection of data and similar exercises were also carried out in Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Details: Deputy Chairman P J Kurien had a tough time controlling the situation and even had an angry spat with Congress members including Pramod Tiwari as they continued to shout even when he stood up to control the noisy scenes. "If you don't know the basic rule of not disturbing the Chair, you are not deserving to be a member," he angrily remarked without naming any member. "Mr Tiwari, I will take action against you. ... This is unheard of that the Chair will not be allowed to say," he said as members piped down and returned to their places. Kurien said if the members found any part of the statement made by the minister as misleading or incorrect, they can invoke the rule book and give notice. Roy continued to insist that the minister was misleading. "If any member or minister misleads the House, give notice, Chairman will consider it," Kurien said. As Roy continued to insist that the minister was misleading the House by saying that the state government had been informed, treasury benches joined in to protest. At this point, an angry Kurien snapped at Bhupender Yadav (BJP) saying "shut up... you are not in the Chair." Roy said the minister was not stating if specific permission was taken for December 1 deployment and comparing the exercise to national emergency.