Closing ranks over the demand of having questions in Bengali in the Joint Entrance examination (JEE), leaders of Congress and Left Front Legislative Party questioned the veracity of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s contention that the state government has already sent a letter to the Centre voicing the same demand.

What prevents the chief minister from issuing copies of that letter, leader of the Opposition, Abdul Mannan and senior Front leader, Sujan Chakraborty said in a joint Press conference at the state Assembly today.

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Let her issue copies of this letter and Congress and Front will join forces with the Trinamul Congress in an agitation over this demand, the leaders said not concealing their doubts on the letter’s existence. Heading the B-team of the BJP, it is not possible for Miss Banerjee to take on the NDA government, Mannan and Chakraborty said after shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi voicing the demand questions in Bengali in the JEE.

After all, time and again Trinamul MPs have staged walk-outs in the Lok Sabha instead of casting their votes against BJP government on any issue, Mannan said.

The NRC issue is a case in point when Trinamul MPs registered a “mute protest”, he added.

The leader of the Opposition wondered as to how the Gujarat state government after writing to the Centre to introduce JEE questions in Gujarati and thereafter withdrawing it, the Centre decided to accede to this demand.

It seems it has got to do with the Prime Minister, Union home minister hailing from Gujarat, thereby making it partisan decision, he felt. Bengali being spoken by a far larger number of people than Gujarati, the former has a stronger claim in this matter, Mannan said.

The entire affair smacks of the inefficiency of the Trinamul state government which is making tall claims in this matter without authenticating them, Chakraborty said. Turning their attention on the issue of widespread dengue outbreak and spiralling prices of essential commodities, the leaders said that the government has failed to tackle both the issues.

The problems on which the chief minister has set up task forces to tackle have been found to have become unmanageable, they added. During our visit to Habra General hospital we found it to be a factory of “dengue mosquitoes”, Mannan and Chakraborty said.

While doctors and patients have supported our views, senior officials have forbidden physicians to write dengue as the cause of passing of a patient on his/her death certificate thereby reflecting the views of an “insensitive government” , they alleged.