Areas of cooperation between Central and state agencies were discussed in the meeting called by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla with the West Bengal chief secretary and police chief, held via video conferencing on Friday, 18 December, sources cited by news agency ANI said.
The meeting comes amid tensions between the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government in the aftermath of an attack on BJP President JP Nadda's convoy.
Earlier, in reply to the home secretary's letter summoning the two officials to Delhi, the state government had suggested a video conference because of the pandemic.
The IPS Officers Row
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Trinamool Congress had said that the government of West Bengal will not release the three Indian Police Service (IPS) officers from their state service on Centre’s orders, and dared the central government to impose President’s rule in the state, PTI reported.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had asked three IPS officers from West Bengal to be relieved from their state postings and transferred to central postings.
Responding to this, CM Mamata Banerjee had described the order as “unacceptable” and being “against the basic tenets of the federal structure.”
‘Expansionist, Undemocratic Forces’
Bholanath Pandey was asked to transfer to Bureau of Police Research and Development as the superintendent of police, Rajeev Mishra to Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITPB) as inspector general, and Praveen Tripathi was asked to transfer to the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
While the MHA informed the government of West Bengal that according to IPS cadre rules, Centre prevails over state in cases of dispute, Banerjee slammed the central government for their “colourable exercise of power and blatant misuse of emergency provision of IPS Cadre Rule 1954,” in a tweet.
She wrote, “This act is nothing but a deliberate attempt to encroach upon state’s jurisdiction and demoralise the serving officers in WB,” adding, “We wouldn’t allow this brazen attempt by the Centre to control the state machinery by proxy! West Bengal is not going to cow-down in front of expansionist and undemocratic forces (sic).”
The three IPS officers were asked transfer to central postings one day after an alleged attack on BJP president JP Nadda's convoy near Kolkata last week, NDTV reported.
(inputs from ANI, PTI and NDTV)
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