West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said the security breach at the new Parliament building was "a serious matter." Rubbishing reports that Lalit Mohan Jha, one of the accused in the Parliament security breach case, has links to the state, she said it was a ploy of the BJP to malign Bengal.
In a major security breach on the anniversary of the 2001 Parliament terror attack, two men jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the public gallery during Zero Hour on Wednesday, released a yellow-coloured smoke from canisters and raised slogans, before being overpowered by the MPs.
"The Parliament security breach is a serious matter. It was a great lapse... The Union home minister has already admitted that. Let them investigate it," Ms Banerjee told reporters at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here before leaving for Delhi.
She also referred to the suspension of party's Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien along with 14 other MPs from the Lok Sabha from participating in the rest of the winter session of Parliament because of protests over the security breach issue.
"Their (BJP) only job is to malign the image of Bengal. Our state does not support any such illegal things," she added.
Talking about her New Delhi visit, Ms Banerjee said she is going to participate in the INDIA bloc meeting scheduled on Tuesday before seeing PM Narendra Modi the next morning and press for the release of unpaid dues to West Bengal.
"Bengal is the only state that they (BJP government in the Centre) have deprived. They have stopped disbursing Bengal's dues for 100 days scheme, Awas Yojana, Gramin Sadak Yojana. This is not the Centre's money only. The state and the Centre share the expenses of such schemes," she added.
Ms Banerjee, while referring to the Centre's directive to paint health centres saffron, hit out at the BJP, alleging that the party was even trying to decide what people should eat or wear.
"You can see all the Metro stations are being painted saffron. I was surprised to see that all houses in Sukna in Siliguri have been painted saffron. We will raise our voices on this as well," she added.
"Why should we paint the health centres saffron? We have already them painted in blue and white which is not our party colour, but our state government's brand. We were the first to start a colour code. Is it at every place that we have to put up the BJP party logo and paint in the BJP colour? This is a well-planned conspiracy to confuse people," she said.
"Today I am going to Delhi. Tomorrow, I will hold a meeting with the MPs. I will also meet other people. On December 19, I will attend the INDIA meeting. Modi has given me an appointment around 11 am on December 20. I will go there along with some MPs," she said.
The TMC Congress had held protest demonstrations in New Delhi when party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee took all MPs, MLAs and party workers there to exert pressure on the Centre to release the dues.
"We have held demonstrations in New Delhi, at the Assembly and also passed a resolution in the House against this attitude of the Centre," she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
