Bengal Ends Clash With Centre Over COVID-19 Teams, Assures Cooperation

Central Representative's team convoy escorted by the police officials in Kolkata. (PTI)

An escalating row over the centre sending teams to West Bengal to investigate alleged lockdown violations has been paused after an exchange of angry letters between the union home secretary and the state's chief secretary, besides a few phone calls.

After Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla wrote to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha warning him that Bengal needed to cooperate with the Centre, Mr Sinha replied that there had been "no non-cooperation" with the central teams that had arrived to survey Kolkata and Jalpaiguri on Monday. 

Mr Sinha said since the teams arrived without prior consultation, there was no opportunity to provide logistic support, nor did the teams seek such support. 

He also gave his "highest assurance" that the central government order would be implemented.

"It is not a fact that the (central inter-ministerial team) has not been provided with any cooperation by the state government. In fact the teams had arrived without any prior consultation with us and therefore there was neither such opportunity to provide any logistic support as envisaged in the order dated 19 April 2020. Nor did the teams ask for any help. They went to BSF guest house in Kolkata and the SSB guest house at Siliguri on their own," Mr Sinha wrote.  

"In this connection this is to inform that the Kolkata team led by Apurva Chandra met me in my office on 20 April and had an interaction about the implementation of long-term measures and other steps of the state government to contain and combat COVID-19. I am also in touch with Vineet Joshi at Siliguri and have apprised him about the steps taken by the state government along with sharing of our reports on mail," the Chief Secretary said.

The row peaked on Monday when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee shot off a furious letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi complaining that the teams had arrived much before she was formally informed. She also questioned why her state had been chosen for the central teams' assessment, defending her administration's coronavirus measures.

Yesterday, Apurva Chandra had said the central team in Kolkata was forced to wait for hours and told - despite a meeting with the Chief Secretary the previous day -- that there were "some issues", so the team would not be going out.

"We met the Chief Secretary last evening at 6 PM at Nabanna (state government headquarters). We were assured that we would again have a meeting and we would be going around and would be taken around. Today we found that there were some issues and we will not be going out. In fact, we made it very clear that we would only be moving around only with the state government liaison officer...," Mr Chandra, a senior defence ministry official, told reporters.

Other states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra had been cooperative with the teams, Mr Chandra said, adding: "They had also been given the same notice as to the state of West Bengal but they have faced no problems."

After the central teams informed Delhi about their predicament, Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla wrote to the chief secretary that states must comply with the centre's order and warned of action. Mr Bhalla said the central teams had been "specifically restrained from making any visits, interacting with health professionals and assessing the ground level situation". This, he said, was obstructing the implementation of orders issued by the central government under the Disaster Management Act and equally binding directions of the Supreme Court.