Centre’s blunder caused Indigo’s flight cancellations ‘disaster’, says Mamata Banerjee

Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government at the Centre for failing to protect the interests of passengers following the series of lapses that led to massive cancellations of flights by Indigo, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday (December 8, 2025) that the whole crisis that arose from the “deadlock” led to a “disastrous” situation.

“I have never witnessed such a completely stagnated situation. It is a disaster, and the Government of India should have planned properly before issuing instructions. How can you harass people like this?,” the Chief Minister told media persons.

Contingency plan

Ms. Banerjee also questioned the rationale of making such a decision without an alternative plan for passenger services. The new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) resulted in cancellations of hundreds of flights over the past few days.

“This decision could have been implemented after 15-20 days, so alternative arrangements could have been made. But the new rules were implemented without any such plan,” Ms. Banerjee said, blaming the BJP-led central government for the suffering caused to people.

The Trinamool Congress chairperson said that she will ask the Centre to get at least half the flights operational.

“Make some other arrangements for the rest. I don’t know what they [the Centre] are doing. They have no interest in the country. The BJP government thinks only about the elections. Their interest is in retaining control of EVMs, the Election Commission, and [central] institutions. They are not thinking about people. That is their main problem,” she said.

Ms. Banerjee said that since she is concerned about common people, she is keeping an eye on the situation.

SIR to stall development

Later in the day, at an administrative meeting in Cooch Behar district, Ms. Banerjee alleged that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was “deliberately timed” to stall development projects in the state.

“I know there is immense pressure on the booth-level officers (BLOs), sub-divisional officers (SDOs) and booth-level agents (BLAs). But, both development projects and the SIR have to continue,” the Chief Minister said. She urged officials not to ignore development work due to the SIR.

The West Bengal government has announced compensation to BLOs and common people who died due to stress induced by the SIR.