West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee unleashed a torrent of outrage against the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), branding the central powerhouse a meddlesome saboteur for unleashing a deluge without a whisper to state authorities, all timed to mar the joyous tail-end of Durga Puja. In a barrage of fiery social media salvos that lit up timelines across the state, Banerjee decried the initial Thursday dump of 65,000 cusecs from key reservoirs as a "reckless and shameful" assault on Bijoya Dashami revelry, plunging millions into a peril she labeled a "manufactured disaster" straight out of a political playbook.
"Bijoya Dashami ushers in closure to our grand Puja celebrations—a symphony of joy, renewal, and unbridled hope," Banerjee fumed in her opening broadside. "But the DVC shattered that serenity by slamming open the gates sans any heads-up, a brazen bid to drown our sacred festivities in misery." She didn't stop there, firing off updates as the crisis escalated: by evening, discharges had ballooned past 150,000 cusecs from the hulking Maithon and Panchet dams, she claimed, a "wilful" escalation designed to "unleash havoc" on Puja-immersed households still buzzing with immersion rituals and family feasts.
State irrigation brass backed the alarm bells, clocking reservoir outflows at 70,000 cusecs by Friday, compounded by 59,075 cusecs gushing from the Durgapur Barrage and snaking through its canal web. "Jharkhand's relentless downpours are funneling extras into the Damodar, swelling its fury and dictating our hand," one official explained, pinning the surge on a brooding depression that's got the India Meteorological Department forecasting a hammer of heavy-to-very-heavy rains across the duo of states. That inbound storm could crank inflows skyward, compelling DVC to crank releases even higher in a high-wire balancing act to safeguard dam walls from overflow Armageddon.
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The fallout? A specter of renewed swamping looms over south Bengal's battered belt—Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Bardhaman twins, Hooghly, Howrah, and Bankura—all slapped with red alerts, their administrations scrambling to fortify embankments and evacuate low-lying hotspots. Homes teeter on riverbanks, croplands risk ruin mid-harvest, and Puja pandals that just days ago pulsed with drumbeats now huddle under sandbag dikes, their victory banners sodden symbols of resilience amid the roar.
This isn't Banerjee's first rodeo with DVC barbs; she's long pilloried the 1948-born behemoth—spanning 24,235 square kilometers across Bengal and Jharkhand under the Power Ministry's watch—for bungled flood taming, from dredging deficits to zero-hour huddles that leave states in the lurch. Past monsoons have seen her squad summon the agency's chiefs for grillings, decrying opaque ops that amplify seasonal woes into full-blown catastrophes, costing billions in damages and displacing lakhs. Critics in her corner whisper of deeper gamesmanship, with the Trinamool supremo eyeing it as Delhi's thumb on the scale in Bengal's political chessboard, especially with assembly polls lurking.
DVC, true to form, zipped its lips on the fresh fusillade, but history suggests it'll trot out the usual defense: ironclad tech calls to match inflows and avert breaches, no malice intended. Yet Banerjee's retort rang like a war cry: "This is no act of God—it's a contrived calamity by DVC. I won't let Bengal's immersion be sabotaged; every plot against our kin will crash against our unyielding shield. Truth crushes lies, and virtue buries vice. Joy Maa Durga!"
As night cloaks the swollen Damodar, Bengal braces in the Puja afterglow, a cauldron of defiance and dread. With rivers raging and radars blinking red, the chief minister's vow hangs heavy: resistance isn't just rhetoric—it's the frontline in a flood fight that's as much about water as it's about wills. In this deluge, only time will tell if the waters recede or the storm swells into legend.
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