A photo of the meeting showed PM modi at the head of a table with but empty chairs to his right

New Delhi:

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today skipped a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assess the aftermath of Cyclone Yaas, choosing instead a quick 15-minute interaction at the airbase where the PM’s flight landed after an aerial survey. She was to attend a review with PM Modi and officials but left after handing him a report.

“You wanted to meet me that is why I have come today. Me and my Chief Secretary want to submit this report to you. Now we have a meeting at Digha so we seek your permission to leave,” the Chief Minister was quoted as saying.

This was their first face-to-face since the acrimonious Bengal election campaign. Mamata Banerjee’s office says she had informed the Centre about her meeting but was asked to wait for PM Modi at the airbase, which enraged her.

But the central government charged Mamata Banerjee with keeping PM Modi and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar waiting for half an hour. A photo of the meeting, tweeted by Mr Dhankhar, showed the Prime Minister at the head of a table with BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and other officials to his left but empty chairs to his right.

The Chief Minister is “callous, arrogant and supremely unmindful of the welfare of the people of her state” and has dealt “an unprecedented blow to propriety and federalism” with her petulant behavior, the government said on what it perceived as a slight.

The Governor straight out accused her of “boycotting” the Prime Minister.

“The conduct by Mamata Banerjee, even during a natural calamity, is deplorable and reeks of low level petty politics,” said sources, giving a version of events that Mamata Banerjee may not agree with.

The alleged snub took place when Prime Minister landed at Kalaikunda airbase in Bengal after an aerial survey of cyclone damage in the state and in Odisha.

“When PM arrived to attend the review meet, there was no one from the West Bengal government. Both the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Chief Secretary of West Bengal were present in the same premises and YET they did not come to receive the PM,” said sources.

“Suddenly Mamata Banerjee, in her haughtiness, storms in and hands over a bunch of papers on the cyclone impact to the PM and says that she is leaving as she has other visits lined up. Never before in the history of the Indian Republic has a Chief Minister of a state behaved in such an ugly, disrespectful and arrogant manner with High Constitutional Position holders such as Prime Minister and Governor,” they said.

Sources also claimed Mamata Banerjee “did not allow” officers of the West Bengal Government like the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary to make a presentation.

“The entire presentation was loaded on the screen, however her pettiness prevented officers from presenting it to the PM. The PM took out time to review the damage in West Bengal, but the Chief Minister’s politics and pettiness prevented it from happening,” the sources said.

According to them, the Chief Minister was upset that her former aide turned BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, who is now Bengal Leader of Opposition, was part of the meeting.

They compared what they called “the disdain of Mamata Banerjee for elected representatives with the statesmanship of PM Modi”, who had accommodated Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, as the leader of the largest opposition party.