Bengal will not be a part of Central initiatives like Ayushman Bharat as they were being used as propaganda tool by the BJP, State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said.
Coming down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing “dirty politics”, Mamata said her State would “not contribute 40 per cent of the funds for the Ayushman Bharat. I withdraw from it. From now, they will have to pay the full amount and run the scheme.”
Addressing a huge audience at Nadia, Mamata asked, “Why should we contribute to the (Ayushman Bharat) scheme if the Prime Minister’s image affixed is on the letterhead along with the picture of lotus (the BJP’s party symbol) instead of India’s national insignia,” alleging the Central Government was running the BJP’s campaign with the people’s money and the money sent in by the federal States.
“We withdraw from the Ayushman Bharat. Let them now fund the scheme and carry it forward. We have our own similar schemes and handle that in more successful manner,” Banerjee said adding Bengal had a better option in Arogyashri.
Incidentally, the Bengal Government had already earned international accolades for bringing social welfare schemes like Kanyashree, Rupashree, Sabuj Saathi all brain child of the Chief Minister.
Bengal was also likely to withdraw from crop insurance, Prime Minister rural road schemes etc, sources later said.
Referring to the Central health insurance and other schemes Banerjee said, “they are claiming to be implementing programmes out of the Centre’s but in fact they are doing so with the fund generated by the States. This is a fraud done on the people of India.”
Wondering why the Centre would take away income tax collected from the people she demanded “our own share of income tax that you take away from the people of this State.”
Attacking the Prime Minister further for “misleading the people” by implementing the 10 percent job quota for the economically backward people from the upper caste segment of the society, Banerjee said they not only misled the people but also “ruined the future of the farmers’ and workers’ children,” adding “Prime Minister is doing dirty politics over this and I condemn it.
Elsewhere, senior TMC leader and MP Abhishek Banerjee attacked the BJP.