On a day when BJP leader Rajib Banerjee told a rally in South 24 Parganas that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had promised him about a Central package should the saffron outfit come to power in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed New Delhi for “promising sky but delivering nothing.”
The Chief Minister who was in a three-day visit to North Bengal said how the BJP leadership had promised before the general elections that they would reopen all the seven closed tea gardens “but not a single one has resumed operations. There are so many (BJP) MPs who have won from North Bengal, but tell me what they have done for this region.... Nothing.”
Banerjee was speaking on the sidelines of a mass wedding event at Falakata in Jalpaiguri district where she handed over land pattas (deeds) to several tea garden workers. The handing out of pattas came a day after the Centre declared a budgetary provision of Rs 1,000 crore for the development of tea gardens in Assam and Bengal.
Banerjee also handed over 4,000 housing certificates to beneficiaries of a State Government scheme even as she said “we do not promise things that we cannot do,” adding how her Government had announced providing house in its last Budget and fulfilled it this time round.
“Today we are handing over allotment letters. This is Trinamool Congress. This is the Maa, Maati, Manush (Mother, Land and People) government,” she said taking a dig at the BJP leadership which she said “remembers tea gardens only during elections. They said that they we will reopen the tea gardens but they seem to have forgotten thispromise.”
Saying that though the TMC could win no MP seats from the region her Government was trying to help the people of the area whereas “they have several MPs in North Bengal but have done anything.” North Bengal accounts for 54 Assembly seats.
Back in South 24 Parganas senior BJP leaders Mukul Roy, Subhendu Adhikari and Rajib Banerjee attacked the Mamata Banerjee Government from a massive rally saying “she has done nothing save dividing the people along communal and regional lines.”
While Adhikari asked Banerjee had ordered payment of a monthly stipend of Rs 2,500 to Imams which was discriminatory against the Hindus priests who were getting only Rs 1,000. He also reminded how only 8,000 Hindu priests were getting the allowance in comparison to 55,000 Imams.
Rajib Banerjee a former Bengal minister who joined the BJP last week said that Union Home Minister had assured him about a central package should the saffron outfit come to power in Bengal.
Both Banerjee and Adhikari and all-India BJP vice president Mukul Roy would fly off to Delhi for a core committee meeting of the top party leadership.
The meeting will discuss electoral strategies in Bengal.