Plagued by fund crunch and unable to pay off the wages under the 100-days’ work scheme and other social projects ahead of the panchayat elections, a delegation of the ruling Trinamool Congress MPs led by party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday met senior Rural Development Ministry officials in Delhi.
The Bengal MPs had to return after meeting some senior officials as minister in charge Giriraj Singh was unavailable in his office, sources said.
"We will not let 17 lakh families of Bengal be deprived by the BJP. We will continue to raise our voices until MGNREGA funds are released. Without an assurance, we will not leave. We’re not here for tea and snacks," Banerjee told reporters.
The TMC have been claiming that the Centre had held back more than Rs 1 lakh crore that legitimately belonged to the State.
"In the new GST regime the Centre collects the taxes and takes it away but refuses to give back the State’s share," Chief Minister Mamata earlier alleged from a rally accusing the BJP of "starving the poor people of Bengal."
Abhishek Banerjee who is also the nephew of the Chief Minister said that though the Minister had asked his party leaders to come on Wednesday for a meeting he had himself absented from the scene.
"We will wait for him for hours and even days … and if he does not meet us and if the Centre does not give us our demands then we will descend on the streets to extract our demands … there is no person more efficient than Mamata Banerjee who can extract her demands through movements," he said warning of a bigger agitation.
Having failed to meet the Minister the TMC leaders submitted a memorandum that also referred to earlier letters written by the Chief Minister to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking clearance of the State’s dues.
"We regret to inform you that despite repeated appeals, the outstanding dues to Bengal have still not been cleared," the memorandum said referring to the dues relating to the schemes like MGNREGA, PMGSY, PMAY (G), and NSAP etc. The approximate dues it claimed stood at Rs 12,300 crores," it said.
Referring to the invoking of Section 27 of the MNREGA Act by the Centre it said, "We urge you to take immediate action to revoke Section 27 of the MGNREGA Act and release the amount owed to Bengal."
BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh however refuted the charges leveled by the TMC leaders.
He said, "The Centre was the custodian of public money and would never allow it go to the pockets of the corrupt TMC leaders who have embezzled thousands of crores that were earlier sent to the State ... the Centre is only asking the State to submit the accounts for the funds sent earlier and then get the present demands cleared … but these thieves are not doing so."