The Bengal BJP on Tuesday hit back at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, rejecting her charges of centre’s fiscal domination over the States even as the Trinamool MPs prepared to meet President Pranab Mukherjee with complaints of central highhandedness.
Reacting to Banerjee’s vehement protest against Centre’s proposal of appointing its officers at State treasuries and BDO offices to oversee expenditure Bengal BJP president, Dilip Ghosh said it was the right of the provider of funds to see how it was being spent.
“A person who provides funds has the right to see how it is being spent and the Centre is just doing that. The Centre is releasing funds for various developmental projects and it has the right to keep an eye on how this fund is being spent,” he said.
Ghosh’s statement came even as a team of Trinamool MPs led by Sudip Bandopadhyay prepared to meet the President to register their protest against what she called fiscal “dictatorship” unleashed by New Delhi.
The Chief Minister had a few days ago attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had “given India an arrogant, dictatorship.”
She also said Modi was “bulldozing the States in the name of “corporate federalism,” and threatened to hit the streets.
Banerjee was particularly vocal about the alleged cuts in central aids for development projects. She had wondered why the projects that were jointly funded by the Centre and the State should run in the name of the Prime Minister.
“Who is the Prime MinisterIJ He is there today and may go tomorrow. But the scheme will continue to run. So these should be named more apolitically so that the BJP is not able to take political advantage of such schemes.”