British Parliamentarians Meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

A delegation of British parliamentarians today called on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, besides having an interaction with Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee and members of the state Legislative Assembly to strengthen links between Indian and British legislators.

The 10-member British delegation, consisting of members from the House of Lords and the House of Commons and led by Baroness D'Souza, the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, began its visit to the city with an interactive session with elected representatives from the Legislative Assembly.

Later the delegation met West Bengal Governor KN Tripathi and Kolkata Municipal Corporation Mayor Sovan Chatterjee.

The British delegation later went to the state secretariat 'Nabanna' to meet the chief minister.

"The visiting parliamentarians are keen to get a better understanding of the challenges faced by their Indian colleagues on various fronts including the relationship between business, civil society and elected representatives; the representation of women in political life and progress towards achieving gender equality in politics; and relationship between the union and state legislatures," a British Deputy High Commission spokesperson said.

The visitors are keen to explore pro-growth and sustainable initiatives being taken to achieve these objectives, the spokesperson said.

The chief minister later said in a Facebook post that she received a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Delegation of eight UK MPs representing various political parties and officials led by Baroness D'Souza CMG, Lord Speaker, at the state secretariat Nabanna.

"We had a very useful discussion on a wide range of topics. They wanted to know about the priorities of the state government like empowerment of women, paid maternity leave for women employees, reservation of seats for women in local bodies and urban and rural development initiatives," she said.

"The delegation expressed keen interest about our 'Kanyashree' scheme. I am so happy that the scheme for our girl child has generated so much interest all over the world," the CM said, adding, "They also wanted to know about the constraints we face in carrying out development work."

"I mentioned to them about the legacy of huge debt left over by the previous government and our repayment burden as the major hurdle to development work and how hard we are working to overcome this obstacle," Ms Banerjee said.