The Trinamool Congress has claimed that despite central deprivation of Bengal’s MNREGA workers the party had taken all the steps to begin payment of the workers whose wages for the 100 days’ work under the MNREGA scheme had been held up by the BJP Government for the past two years.
“Our leader Abhishek Banerjee had promised to arrange for the payment of the deprived MNREGA workers if the Centre would not release funds ... he has kept his promise and efforts are on to clear their dues phase-by-phase,” TMC spokesperson and MP Dr Shantanu Sen said adding the 2,500 workers who had gone to Delhi with a delegation led by Banerjee to press for the early release of the MNREGA wages would not have their dues cleared.
Banerjee who is also the TMC general secretary had during a dharna at the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata said that he would appeal to “our people’s Chief Minister to arrange for the payment of the unpaid MNREGA workers and if it is not possible by her government to do so in absence of the central funds not coming I promise to get the payments done from our party’s end ... wherein we will donate our one month-salary for the cause and out of that donation the initial phase of MNREGA payments will be cleared.”
Reacting to Dr Sen’s statement Pradesh Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury said that the TMC leaders had their stolen money stashed away in different island countries and that it would not be very difficult to bring some of that money to pay the MNREGA workers to win votes in 2024 general elections.
The BJP on the other hand wondered as to how a political party could pay the official wages for government works done by the general people.
CPI(M)’s Md Salim on the other hand lambasted both the BJP and the TMC
MPs from Bengal for failing to secure the release of the funds. “The non-payment of the MNREGA funds only proves that the MPs from Bengal are inefficient and worthless for their job ...they have failed to stand by the poor workers.”