West Bengal has found itself in a flood situation and has presently come under conflict with its neighboring state, Jharkhand, due to the imposition of sanctions from the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, to block the inter-state border. The chief minister has alleged that the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) let loose 5 lakh cusecs of water in three days, inundating 11 districts in southern Bengal. She also attacked her INDIA bloc partner, the Jharkhand Chief Minister, Hemant Soren, for failing to answer all her appeals for collaboration.
To harness of this crisis, Mamata Banerjee proclaimed that her administration would “cut off all relations” with the DVC, claiming the latter was “flooding Bengal to save Jharkhand,” according to reports. Another agency at the receiving end, as per Banerjee, regarding deregulation in the assessment of the water’s release from reservoirs is the DVC, which works in both West Bengal and Jharkhand. JMM also expressed opposition to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya, claiming that it was hasty and unreasonable for her to stop trucks. After this reaction, he threatened that Jharkhand might counter it by stopping trucks carrying essential commodities to Bengal, raising tension between the two states further.
Bhattacharya then pointed out that the water levels in reservoirs in Jharkhand were close to the danger level because of heavy rains and that the let off of water is not independent of the DVC but by an inter-state committee. This she defended as necessary, saying that this was done so as to avert vehicles being swept away by flood waters on the Bengal side. However, the Soren-led JMM retaliated strongly after the Bengal Police started arresting trucks and other commercial vehicles from entering Bengal from the Dhanbad-West Burdwan border near Kulti.
The situation has aggravated further, to which West Bengal and Jharkhand are also not on good terms now. Police in the West Bengal government announced the checking of all the vehicles coming from Jharkhand in order to prevent non-essential movement across the state. During a post-survey emergency meeting, Banerjee pointed out that even Durga Puja pandals were also flooded, which made the situation even worse.
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