'West Bengal government not serious about floods'

The state BJP leadership launched an attack at the West Bengal government on Wednesday, saying that it had not been serious in tackling the flood situation in the state and had not taken necessary and timely preventive measures to check the calamity before it reached epic proportions.

"North Bengal is severed from the rest of the state and all the state government has been doing is blame the Centre for the situation," state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said at a press conference. "No preventive step was taken. Floods have been a recurring affair here, and so far, there has been no survey or serious repairwork to embankments."

He added that the State never co-ordinated with the Centre for relief work. "They keep on alleging that the Centre is not offering help, but have they kept the Centre abreast of the situation here? Noone seems to know what the extent of the damage is. While one says it is Rs 55 crore, another claims it is Rs 400 crore. None of the ministers went to the flood-affected areas. Only Mamata Banerjee went once and that too was more of a photo op," Ghosh said.