Congress and CPIM silent on BJP's discrimination against West Bengal: Abhishek Banerjee

Trinamool Congress President Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday said that the Congress and the CPIM were projecting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a bad light. Addressing a public meeting at Raninagar in Murshidabad, the TMC general secretary said that the two parties.

The young TMC leader also accused the Congress of not taking up the matter of non-payment of 100 days of work wages to people of West Bengal with the central government.  He said that neither the Baharampur MP and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhury took up the issue with the Centre, nor did the CPIM raise it. 

Abhishek Banerjee is currently holding a mass outreach programme in West Bengal. It started on April 25. 

Attacking the Centre over non-payment of dues to the West Bengal government, he said that the BJP-led government deprived over 11.33 lakh poor people of their rightful wages.  He said that the Centre was supposed to pay Rs 7,000 crore to the West Bengal government for the 100 days project. 

He said that only his party, the TMC was concerned about the poor people and was raising the issues which concern them, not the Congress and the CPIM.  He also promised that the Trinamool Congress will organise a massive protest in Delhi, to force the Centre to release the money for the 100 days work project. 

Banerjee said that from 2014 to 2019 the TMC had a good strength in the Lok Sabha and hence the Modi-led government could not deprive West Bengal of its dues. 

The TMC had 34 MPs in the Lok Sabha during this period. As of now this number has fallen considerably and now the BJP has 19 MPs from West Bengal in the lower house of Parliament.  These BJP MPs have not done anything substantial for the state, alleged Banerjee. He said that they have not raised issues pertaining to the state with the same enthusiasm as was done by TMC MPs. 

Banerjee also attacked BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. He said that a car in Adhikari’s convoy hit a youth in Purba Medinipur but the BJP did not release any statement on the incident. Reacting to this the BJP said that the TMC has been cornered on various fronts and therefore is raising such an “unfortunate mishap”. He said that this is their tactic to deflect attention from their failures. 

Reacting to his statement, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary said, “How many times in the Parliament have TMC leaders, including Abhishek, joined the opposition camp in our battle against the undemocratic central government? For the interest of West Bengal, the Congress has always raised its voice in the national capital.”