Army rebuts Mamata charges, says police was in the loop

Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee opened yet another front against the Narendra Modi government at the centre by questioning the presence of Army at toll plazas in West Bengal and staging a sit-in at the state secretariat against what she alleged was an “army coup”. The row rocked Parliament where Trinamul members alleged sinister designs behind the move.

Ms Banerjee has been trying to assume leadership of an alternative front to the Congress and BJP with an eye on the 2019 polls. She has already locked horns with the Modi government over demonetisation scheme and had on Thursday accused the centre of hatching a conspiracy to kill her by refusing permission to her plane to land in Kolkata despite it being short on fuel.

Ms Banerjee said the state government will take legal recourse if there is no withdrawal of Army personnel from all toll plazas in the state.

She has also led protests in many parts of the country against the scrapping of `500 and `1,000 notes and had led a march to the President’s House at the beginning of the parliament session.

The Centre has denied the charge of Army collecting money at toll plazas vehemently.

Leading the defence from the government side, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said it was a routine exercise. He said that it was very unfortunate that the army has been dragged into an unnecessary controversy.

The Army on its part said that it was wrong to say that its personnel were deployed across toll plazas and collecting money without keeping the state government in loop and said the exercise was being carried out in coordination with the state government.

Army sources said allegations of collection of money by army personnel are totally baseless. It said that Army formations in Eastern Command at local levels are carrying out routine annual data collection exercise on availability of load carriers at major entry points.

They said this was being done in coordination with local police authorities.

The Army team exercise had earlier been scheduled for November 27 and 28.

The dates were changed to November 30 on a specific request by Kolkata Police due to a countrywide protest called on November 28.