Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said there is no communal tension in the state and described the recent violence in Kaliachak in Malda district as a result of scuffle between BSF and local people.
“What happened there is a different issue. It was an issue between BSF and the local people. You should not ask such questions here because it is distorted and what happened there is disinformation.
“There was a quarrel between BSF and locals. It has nothing to do with the state government, party or administration. We managed the situation,” Banerjee told reporters at the concluding session of the Bengal Global Business Summit.
“We have a peaceful atmosphere in the state. There is no communal tension here,” Banerjee reiterated.
Later talking to reporters, Banerjee sounded hopeful of coming back to power after the Assembly election in the state to be held in this year.
“It is for the people to decide, but when someone works hard, people want a continuation of that hard work,” she said.
Asked that the ministers of Narendra Modi government had praised her, Banerjee said, “I am always in favour of federal structure. The Central government is like parent and states are its children. If the relation between the state and the Centre is good, it will strengthen the federal structure.
“We have supported the GST as it was our commitment, although we have some reservations about the land bill,” she said.
She announced that next year’s Business summit will be held on January 20-21. “Several people had told us if we could postpone the dates by two weeks this year so that many more can come and join us. That is why we decided to hold the summit from January 20, 2017,” she said.
The Bengal Global Business Summit, she said, attracted investment proposals worth Rs 2.50 lakh crore.