Continuing her diatribe against the Centre for depriving her State of its rightful dues, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday reminded the BJP Government of its constitutional duties to treat all the States alike when it came to releasing their rightful dues.
Addressing a meeting at Banarhat in North Bengal Banerjee said that the Centre was not treating the BJP-ruled States and the States ruled by the Opposition parties equally. New Delhi had released funds to Uttar Pradesh where three lakhs fake job cards were reported while “in the case of Bengal they have stopped payment of Rs 7,000 crore just on flimsy grounds,” the Chief Minister said.
In what is being viewed as a two-pronged strategy of coaxing Prime Minister Narendra Modi into releasing the State’s dues on the one hand and making non-release of the MNREGA and Prime Ministers’ Awaas funds, a strong electoral issue on the streets Banerjee on Monday reiterated that she had sought an appointment with the Prime Minister between 18 and 20 December when she would be in Delhi.
“We are not begging for funds … but we are asking for what is rightfully ours … I will be in Delhi on December 18, 19 and 20 … I have already written a letter to the Prime Minister seeking his appointment … I will request him to release the funds because it belongs to the poor … no government has the right to withhold the rightful dues of the labourers,” Banerjee said, adding how the Centre was not clearing a total of Rs 1.15 lakh crore of the State.
“Bengal will never bow its head before anyone … we will only demand and extract our rightful dues,” Banerjee said reminding how “we had given our acquiescence to the introduction of GST laws considering the usefulness of the one-nation-one-tax regime … but they are now victimizing us by taking away taxes from the State but not releasing its rightful dues … this is not their money … it is our money, our people’s money … they have not been releasing the funds for Awaas schemes, rural roads and 100-days’ works” in order to punish the people who had not voted the BJP to power in 2021.
Banerjee’s speech came on a day when a central team surveying the progress of rural housing schemes was blockaded by the villagers in Bankura district.Speaking on the Chief Minister’s seeking appointment with the Prime Minister, the State CPI(M) leadership said that she was “running with the hare and hunting with the hound.” CPI(M) Central Committee member Sujan Chakrabarty said that “she should make the agenda of the meeting clear to the public … one is not sure whether she is meeting the Prime Minister to save her nephew from arrest,” in lieu of some seats in Bengal in the Lok Sabha elections.
