KOLKATA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday virtually interacted with DMs of various districts, but Bengal DMs skipped the meeting. Several of the state’s DMs told TOI they had no information about the meeting. Earlier, in May 2021, the PM had an interaction with DMs but then, too, officers from Bengal had skipped the meet.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee last week twice flagged her grievances against the proposed change of norms of services of IAS officers for which she wrote twice to the PM.
On Saturday, Modi held discussions with the DMs on the implementation of key government schemes. He tweeted: “One of the key factors behind the success of the aspirational districts programme is convergence. When the aspirations of others become your aspirations and when fulfilling the dreams of others becomes the measure of your success, then that path of duty creates history. Today, aspirational districts are eliminating the barriers of progress in the country. They are becoming an accelerator instead of an obstacle.”
Modi urged the DMs to set 10 goals that could be achieved within the next three months.
However, Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy described the move to connect with the DMs as one that “will weaken the federal structure of the country”. He criticised the attempt of speaking to the DMs in the name of accelerating projects without the CM or the chief secretary as an autocratic move.
“Because the DMs work under the state government and are under the direct control of the CM and the CS, any attempt of grabbing power is unwanted. For this reason, Bengal DMs did not attend the meeting,” Roy said.
PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury said: “BJP is trying to weaken the federal structure of India by all means and now the PM wants to bypass the CM and connect with the DMs, though the DMs work under the state government. Again, in the name of change of service rules of all-India service officers, the Centre is trying to centralise all powers in their hands, which is unjustified. The BJP is trying to ensure one nation one administration, breaking the federal set-up.”
