Days after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not paying Bengal its dues the Trinamool Congress on Sunday hit the streets demanding early release of funds and threatened intensified stir in days to come.
Thousands of TMC workers on Sunday took out rallies led by senior leaders in Kolkata and districts including Howrah demanding early clearance of the State’s dues.
“We are not begging for funds … we are demanding what it rightfully hours,” said State TMC general secretary Kunal Ghosh adding “the Centre takes away taxes from the State and refuses to return to us our share … if they do not release the funds, then how the people will get their money back,” he said leading a huge rally in Kolkata.
Another senior leader and minister Arup Roy led a massive rally in Howrah where he attacked the Centre for its vendetta politics. “As the BJP failed to win Bengal … as they suffered a humiliating defeat in the hands of Mamata Banerjee single-handedly defeated her in the 2021 Assembly elections they are not taking out on the people of the State by holding back their money and making them starve,” said the TMC leader.
Bengal Minister Firhad Hakim alleged that the Centre had held back funds to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore. “Having failed to take Bengal politically they are now trying to starve the people of this State … but they must know that we are self-respecting people and will never surrender to them.”
With panchayat elections less than a year away and under pressure from the village party units to clear dues piled up against 100-days’ work done by the villagers the Chief Minister had earlier alleged that the Centre was not clearing funds against the works done under national rural employment guarantee scheme.
“The Centre is playing dirty politics with us … after failing to win Bengal in the Assembly elections … They have held back the funds to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore due under the 100-days work scheme for the past five months … this has made it extremely difficult for the poor people employed through 100-day work scheme to get their payments, Banerjee said adding the Centre was not doing any favours to the State by giving that money. “It belongs to us as it is the part of the tax they take from the people of Bengal.”
She said that the her party men including the “members of our students' wing, women's unit and the tribal arm will hold protests on June 5 and 6 in various blocks of the state, seeking an explanation from the Narendra Modi government for this discrimination showed against Bengal.”
She also alleged that the Centre was not releasing our dues under Bangla Awas Yojana. Incidentally, the BJP has always alleged that the State Government had been changing the name of central schemes as in the case of Prime Minister Awas Yojna which had been rechristened as Bangla Awas Yojana.
Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP hit back at the State Government for making Bengal a hub of cut money and syndicate. In an apparent explanation for the alleged central deprivation BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh said that “most money that goes to the State went to the syndicates or spent in khelas or melas … funds are diverted for populist schemes and cut money extracted from there … this is why the State is now running short of funds … and to save its face it is blaming the Centre.”
Another BJP leader said that a huge amount of money was being diverted to wasteful schemes like Laxmir Bhandar etc which were why the State had no funds to appoint school teachers a reason why most schools were running without permanent faculty.