Trinamool, BJP feud over rainfall information after Kolkatas lethal downpour

Three days after torrential rainfall pounded town, flooded neighbourhoods, and left a number of lifeless, the Trinamool Congress and the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) engaged in a contemporary disagreement over the rainfall information cited by the Trinamool for the lethal downpour within the intervening night time of September 22 and September 23.

At least 9 folks died by electrocution in Kolkata after extraordinarily heavy rains lashed town between Tuesday and Wednesday and left it severely waterlogged, resulting in disruptions in public life and colossal harm to infrastructure and companies days earlier than Durga Puja festivities. 

On Wednesday, the social media deal with of the BJP shared a submit by Trinamool the place the ruling dispensation had claimed that Kolkata obtained ‘in a single day rainfall measuring 1,423.2mm throughout main neighbourhoods’. In the caption, the BJP took a dig at Trinamool leaders and connected a video of the State Health Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya saying town witnessed 252mm of rainfall.

“In the age of knowledge, ignorance is a alternative. And BJP chooses ignorance, if not outright barefaced lies. The determine of 1,423.2 mm refers back to the cumulative in a single day rainfall throughout main neighbourhoods,” the Trinamool retorted on-line, linking a report by an English each day that cited the 1423.2mm rainfall determine.

On Thursday, the saffron social gathering launched one other offensive in opposition to Trinamool’s “public relations interns”, accusing their workforce of working a “PR circus” and taking the assistance of journalists to “cowl up the blunder.”

“A rain gauge measures rainfall for a particular space. Kolkata obtained 251 mm of rain in 24 hours. When you mix rainfall information from a number of neighbourhoods, the whole space will increase. To get the precise rainfall, you must common it. Adding readings from 5 rain gauges positioned aspect by aspect doesn’t make the rainfall 5 occasions extra. Learn fundamentals, you dumb,” the BJP’s social media submit on Thursday reads.

In response, the Trinamool known as the BJP’s IT cell “brain-dead”, “half-witted, “numbskulls,” and accused them of sneering at journalists and “hiring trolls and bots to spew venom around the clock.”

“For your edification, what Kolkata confronted was not one pocket however the whole metropolis below a relentless downpour, with cumulative readings from a number of areas exhibiting how widespread and devastating the deluge was. That is why main dailies reported the consolidated determine,” Trinamool’s social media submit on Thursday learn.

The blunt change between the 2 events on social media follows a long-drawn verbal feud between leaders of the 2 events, with BJP leaders blaming Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim for the deaths, and Trinamool leaders accusing the saffron social gathering of politicising a calamity.

“Eleven folks died and [the Chief Minister] is enjoying dandiya. Why ought to she partake in festivities? She is the guardian of the residents, the executive head. She ought to take a vow of silence,” Leader of Opposition of West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari stated on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh on Wednesday claimed that the ‘record-high’ rainfall skilled in a single night time between September 22 and 23 is ‘twenty p.c of the annual rainfall’ often recorded within the area.

“When Kolkata is experiencing a pure calamity within the type of unprecedented rainfall, [the Opposition] determined to play political video games,” Mr Ghosh stated.