The Rajasthan Government on Sunday slammed the West Bengal Government for sending controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen to Jaipur without informing them beforehand. It also said it had written to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil to do something about her fast. “The way she was sent here is very very wrong. The West Bengal Government did not care to inform us that such a sensitive person was being sent here. It is against basic decency and protocol. They just put her in a plane and sent her here. Our DG, police, called their Government’s DG and asked him why they had done so,” Ghulab Chand Kataria, Rajasthan Home Minister, told The Indian Express from Jaipur. Only on Saturday, West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray said the state was ready to provide her protection if she came back to the city.The Rajasthan Home Minister also said they were in a sort of dilemma as what to do with her. “Since she was thrust upon us we cannot throw her that way. If she is not a burden, she is definitely a liability for us. We want either the Union Government to take care of her or the West Bengal Government take her back. How can the West Bengal Government discard her since she had been staying there for such a long time. And she is not carrying her passport or visa with her. When we asked her about this she said she had left them in Kolkata. We have written to the Union Home Minister to take a quick decision about her,” Kataria said.He also criticised the alleged double standard followed by the state Government. “They claim they are secular and the BJP is communal. Still they had to depend on the communal BJP for the safety of a person who is being hounded by fundamentalists. What a dichotomy!” Kataria wondered. But the CPI(M) said the writer was not under the “protection of the Rajasthan Government as she was in Delhi”. “So far as sending the author out of the state was concerned it was a decision concerning the Government and we cannot comment on their (Rajasthan's) allegations,” Shyamal Chakrabarty, CPI(M) Central Committee member and spokesman for the state unit, told The Indian Express. Meanwhile, in Kolklata, social activist Medha Patkar criticised the Left Front Government for sending Taslima out of the state. “If you give her visa you should also ensure her security. It baffles me how the state Government sent her out,” Patkar said.
