Mamata Banerjee meets PM Modi seeking central funds for West Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here seeking adequate central funds for the state. Banerjee said she demanded central aid for relief and rehabilitation of lakhs of people affected by recent floods in West Bengal.

"I had controlled the flood within 3 days after returning from London," she said emerging from the nearly half-an-hour meeting with Modi.

Around 130 people died in the heavy floods in July, which also destroyed crops and vegetables on 8,000 hecatres of agricultural land. Referring to West Bengal's debt problem, she said "even after more than four years of our rule, we are still repaying the debt left behind by the previous Left Front government."

"I hope they will give us justice. It was not a political meeting," she said when asked about the meeting with the PM.

The Chief Minister said a meeting of the full Niti Ayog should be called and all states invited so that disbursal of funds to states can be discussed. Earlier, the Planning Commission used to invite each state to discuss fund allocation but that is not happening now, so a full meeting the Ayog should be called, she said.

On the ongoing debate on tolerance issue, she said "tolerance or intolerance I am a secular person." Asked about her stand on disruption of parliament, she said "some issues come up in a democracy but we do not support disruption everyday."