After Row With Centre, Mamata Banerjee Unblocks COVID-19 Inspection Team

A central team sent to Bengal to investigate coronavirus lockdown violations waited for hours today before being allowed by the Mamata Banerjee government to tour Kolkata. It took a home ministry warning before the state government budged after keeping the teams in Kolkata and Jalpaiguri on hold.

The West Bengal government is believed to be consulting legal experts on the possibility of moving the Supreme Court over the centre's sending its team to the state.

Inter-Ministerial Central Teams have been sent to four states, three ruled by the opposition.

The teams in Bengal "are being restrained from making any visits to areas, interacting with health professionals, and assessing the ground level situation," the home ministry said in a stern letter.

The home ministry said except Bengal, every state had cooperated with its teams.

"We are not getting support from West Bengal, we are not being permitted to do our job. We have written to West Bengal again and have told them they have to assist otherwise action may be initiated. We are getting assistance from Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Our decision to send teams was based on multiple inputs, not only from the health ministry," said Home Ministry's Punya Salila Srivastava in a media briefing.

It was dark out when the team in Kolkata was finally allowed to drive around.

"We were assured we could visit places today. We were informed there were some issues and we will not be going out," said Apurva Chandra, a senior Defence Ministry official heading the Kolkata team.

Yesterday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the team arriving in Kolkata much before she was formally told on the phone by Home Minister Amit Shah. "The selection of districts and observations made unilaterally are nothing but figments of imagination and unfortunate," she raged, calling the team's arrival a breach of protocol.

She also said unless the PM and Amit Shah explained why her state had been singled out, it would not be possible for her government to cooperate.

Central teams have been sent to Pune in Maharashtra, Jaipur in Rajasthan, Kolkata, Howrah, Midnapur East, 24 Parganas North, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh's Indore. Madhya Pradesh is the only BJP-ruled state where the centre has sent a team.

Bengal has seven districts on the centre's watch-list. Three of the four districts have not reported a single virus case in 14 days, the state government claims.

But why no central teams in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi - which have a high number of COVID-19 cases - questioned the ruling Trinamool Congress.

"States are fighting the virus, the centre is fighting against some states," said Trinamool MP Derek O'Brien.

"If you come for adventure tourism in the state then you will only create difficulties for yourself."

The Trinamool pointed out that Gujarat, also ruled by the BJP, had seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks. The state has the third highest coronavirus cases in the country - 1939 -- including 71 deaths.

The centre claims it has sent the teams where the situation is serious and lockdown guidelines are being violated. The government alleges that markets are opening across the state without caution and there are instances of Bengal underreporting COVID-19 cases.