Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday carped at Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for playing politics over issues of development.
Expressing his annoyance over Banerjee's absence from a programme sponsored by the Centre (Petroleum Ministry), Pradhan, who was in Kolkata for launching the Prime Minister Ujwala Yojna in the State said, "I am quite dismayed at the absence of Didi (Banerjee). The least she could have done was to send a State representative to the programme."
Political differences should not be allowed to come in the way of development, the Union Minister said.
"I personally sent an invitation to the Chief Minister as I consider myself as her younger brother but she did not care to come. We also invited the State Ministers including the local MP but they did not care to come," the Union Minister said, reminding "there may be political differences but politics should not be allowed to come in the way of development."
The PMUY was all about a dream Prime Minister Nardendra Modi had seen to provide clean fuel to the poor households of Bengal, "but it seems that the State Government is not keen to make that dream of providing clean fuel to poor women of the State come true."
GM (Bengal) of Indian Oil, RK Mahapatra earlier said: "Bengal will be an important State for PMUY implementation as lPG penetration here is a lot lower than the national average of 52 per cent. The selection of
BPl households will be done based on the 2011 socio-economic caste census," Mahapatra said. The Beneficiaries would need a bank account and Aadhar number so that the subsidy can reach their accounts.
Responding to Pradhan's comment, the Trinamool Government hit back saying, there was no invitation from the other side. "We were not invited so how could we go," State Minister Jyotipriya Mullick said.
PMUY is all about providing free lPG connections to about 1.06 crore BPl households of the State in the coming five years. The State Trinamool leadership sees the central scheme as a threat to Mamata Banerjee's populist schemes like Kanyashree and Sabuj Saathi whereby free cycles and `25,000 are given to girl students after attaining the age of 18, insiders say.
The programme was attended by Union Ministers SS Ahluwalia, Babul Supriyo and State BJP president and MlA Dilip Ghosh amongst others.