After meeting with PM, video conference with Sonia Gandhi on Mamata Banerjee’s sked

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his aerial survey of the areas affected by cyclone Amphan in the state. Eighty people have died due to the impact of the cyclone in the state, she said.

In the afternoon, CM Banerjee is scheduled to attend a videoconference of opposition leaders called by Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi to discuss the Covid-19 situation in the country.

According to a senior official of the state government, the chief minister and the Prime Minister surveyed two of the two worst-affected districts - North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas - following which both of them attended an administrative meeting at Basirhat, a subdivision in North 24-Parganas district that has been ravaged by the cyclone and large parts of which remain cut-off from the rest of the state due to fallen trees, electric poles and electric and mobile towers.

After the meeting with PM Modi, Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to return to the state secretariat, where she will attend a videoconference of opposition leaders called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the government’s Covid-19 management and the plight of the migrant workers.

Earlier, receiving the Prime Minister at Kolkata airport on Friday morning, the Bengal CM asked the PM to declare cyclone Amphan as a national disaster, a demand that the Congress and Left Parties in the state have also made.

On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee had said that the cyclone has come as a double whammy in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown and the state would need Centre’s help for relief and reconstruction.

Making the demand, Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Surya Kanta Mishra said, “Funds should start reaching the state immediately.”