In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “The government of West Bengal cannot release and is not releasing its Chief Secretary at this critical hour,” news agency ANI reports. She requested the PM to withdraw, recall, reconsider the decision and rescind the latest so-called order.

The West Bengal CM said she is “shocked and stunned” by the unilateral order of the Centre asking Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay to report to the central government.

“The government of Bengal cannot release, and is not releasing, its Chief Secretary at this critical hour, on the basis of our understanding that the earlier order of extension, issued after lawful consultation in accordance with applicable laws, remains operational and valid,” Mamata Banerjee wrote to Narendra Modi. 

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Amid a row between Mamata Banerjee and the Centre over the former not attending a meeting with PM Modi on Friday, Alapan Bandyopadhyay was ordered to report to the Centre. 

On Friday, Mamata Banerjee skipped a meeting with PM Modi to assess the damage due to Cyclone Yaas that hit West Bengal last week.

“I wanted a quiet word with you, a meeting between PM and CM as usual. You however included a local MLA from your party (who) had no locus to be present at a PM-CM meeting,” Mamata Banerjee said in the letter. 

PM Modi met the CM for 15 minutes at Kalaikunda airbase, where his flight landed, and said she had a meeting in Digha, so Mamata Banerjee said she took “his permission and left.”

The central government called her “callous and arrogant” and added Mamata Banerjee is “supremely unmindful of the welfare of the people of her state”