After many months Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday directly targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not releasing funds to her State and wondered whether she would have to catch his feet to get the MNREGA and other funds released. Speaking in a meeting at Jhargram the Chief Minister said “despite repeated requests to the Prime Minister, funds legally due to the State have not been released … these are not personal funds … they do not come from anyone’s zamindari (landed estate) … they are tax-payers’ money and rightfully belong to the people of Bengal who are being deprived of what is legally theirs.”
She said that those who were at the helm in the Centre should “either release the funds or step down from power… I have several times written to them and requested them for funds … now will I have to catch their feet to get these funds released … they will not do any kindness to us by release the funds … this is our right to get what is rightfully ours.”
Banerjee has of late --- particularly after the stepped up actions of ED and CBI in the State --- refrained from making adverse remarks against the Prime Minister. Instead she has often found praising him while holding Home Minister Amit Shah for conspiring against Bengal and the Trinamool Congress.
Saying that either the Centre should release the money or they should stop collecting Goods and Services Tax. “What is the point in giving GST if we do not get our share from it … either they should release the funds or they should stop claiming GST,” Banerjee said.
Banerjee was visiting the tribal-dominated Jhargram district for the first time after her ministerial colleague Akhil Giri kicked up a storm a few days ago by making disparaging remarks against President Droupadi Murmu for which the Chief Minister had to make a public apology. Taking a swipe at the Centre for withholding hundred-days funds for several months --- a development that had irked lakhs of people in the villages ahead of next year’s panchayat elections --- Banerjee said “the poor people are suffering and the government has held back the MNREGA funds … why should they deprive the poor people of their basic needs … what is their fault,” wondering whether there was an erosion in the democratic values in the country. “Are we living in a democracy? … Has India become a one-party rule?” she asked.
Banerjee’s tirade came close on the heels of local tribal people directly questioning her about not receipt of MNREGA funds or failure on the part of the Government to construct houses for them.
“We have neither got any house not have we received 100-days’ work wages for so many months,” local women from a village at Belpahari block asked the Chief Minister.
She however told them that the Centre was not releasing the funds despite repeated requests.