Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee reached Delhi on Sunday ahead of the party’s planned protest against denial of MGNREGA and housing scheme funds to Bengal government in the national capital. Forty-nine busloads of TMC supporters are slated to reach Delhi on Monday.
The TMC will hold a peaceful sit-in by its MPs and state ministers at Rajghat on October 2, and a peaceful rally of the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme) job card holders the next day, party officials said. Both the programmes will be live streamed. The buses were mobilised by the regional party after the Indian Railways refused to rent out special trains to take the workers to Delhi pleading unavailability of rakes.
The TMC claimed the denial of trains as well as cancellations of a flight to Delhi were part of an attempt by the ruling BJP party to scuttle its demonstration. Speaking to reporters at the NSCBI Airport here before flying to New Delhi, Banerjee said, ”The agitation will continue till the rightful dues of the people of Bengal are released by the Centre”.
The TMC general secretary said that though the state government had sent verified lists of beneficiaries in December 2022, the Centre is yet to make payments. ”If anyone is found guilty of corruption in a 100-day work or housing scheme, let action be taken against them, but why is money to the beneficiaries stopped?” he asked.
The BJP has been asserting that the payments were stopped due to ”irregularities”. Banerjee also demanded the arrest of Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Giriraj Singh following the deaths of three children in Bankura district in a mud house collapse recently, claiming that the deaths could have been avoided if the family had received due financial aid under the government housing scheme to build brick and mortar housing.
Banerjee claimed that Giriraj Singh has expressed his inability to meet the TMC representatives as he would not be in Delhi, though he is scheduled to meet BJP MPs from Bengal. ”This again establishes the step-motherly attitude of BJP towards Bengal,” said the TMC leader.
”It is established that the BJP is forcibly stopping payment of dues of the people of Bengal,” the Diamond Harbour MP said. ”Refusal to allot a special train, cancellation of flight, denial of permission for holding the protest meeting in Delhi, all indicate their attempt to stop the voice of the state’s people,” he said.
Full-service carrier Vistara has cancelled one of its flights from Kolkata to Delhi scheduled for Sunday, saying it needed to operate additional flights for passengers stranded in Kolkata and Port Blair. Meanwhile, several Trinamool Congress workers were injured when one of the 49 buses taking them to Delhi to take part in a protest met with an accident in Jharkhand on Sunday.
The bus careened and went down to a field behind the highway, leaving a few passengers slightly injured. Its occupants were brought back to Purulia town in West Bengal for medical treatment, a party leader said. Following the accident, senior West Bengal minister Shashi Panja accused the BJP of being responsible as it was behind the refusal by the railways to allot special trains for the event.
”Check your hands @Dr SukantaBJP, they’re red with the blood of those injured,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. BJP West Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar on the other hand claimed that while TMC leaders were travelling by aeroplanes, the protesters were being made to take buses to Delhi.
”The way TMC leaders are enjoying the luxury of flights and pushed these innocent people to the brink of life risk is condemnable,” he retorted on X. A TMC leader said that the buses, which left Kolkata and other districts of West Bengal on Saturday night, would start reaching Delhi by early Monday.
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