Mamata Banerjee leads strike against central government in Kolkata over unpaid funds

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has started a two-day strike against the central government in Kolkata. They have started a sit-in near the Ambedkar statue at Dharmatalla from 12:00 noon on Wednesday.

Mamata Banerjee is accompanied on stage by ministers in her cabinet and the Mayor of Kolkata Firhad Hakim, Arup Biswas, Shashi Panja, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Dola Sen, Jyotsna Mandi, and Sayoni Ghosh. Mamata had already announced that she would protest for two days from Wednesday against the central government for depriving Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee alleges that a total of one lakh 15 thousand crore rupees is owed to the center by the state, which the state is not getting despite many demands. Mamta claims that Rs 8200 crore is due under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana while Rs 7200 crore of MNREGA is yet to be received from the Centre. Rs 2409.96 crore of GST collected from the state is yet to be received by the state as its share.

Apart from this, Rs 4222 crore was to be received from the Center to compensate for the damage caused by Cyclone Yes, which was not received. Similarly, an amount of Rs 6332 crore for the Bulbul cyclone and Rs 32 thousand 310 crores for Amphan was to be received from the center which has not been given.

Mamata has said that several times a letter was written to the Prime Minister in this regard seeking his intervention but no action has been taken.