Mamata holds protest, seeks release of funds

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday started a 30-hour sit-in demonstration in Kolkata demanding release of funds from Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government even as she stepped up her attack against the party labelling it Dushasana of the nation”

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday started a 30-hour sit-in demonstration in Kolkata demanding release of funds from Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government even as she stepped up her attack against the party labelling it Dushasana of the nation”.

Mamata Banerjee said that she was staging the demonstration as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and not as the chief minister. (Hindustan Times)

Threatening to launch a sit-in outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s house, she said while addressing the gathering in central Kolkata: “The labourers are not getting wages as the Centre has frozen MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) funds. I will stage such sit-in demonstrations 10 million times to get the funds released. If needed, Mamata can also stage a sit-in demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s house in Delhi. This much guts I have.”

Banerjee, however, said that she was staging the demonstration as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and not as the chief minister.

Calling for a united front, she said, “It is easy to bring down the BJP’s seats by half to around 100 in the Lok Sabha. That’s why before every election they arrest opposition leaders. Opposition parties must fight unitedly to oust the BJP from power and save the country. They are the Dushasana of the nation. This is not a fight for who would become the leader. This is a fight to save the country.”

She hinted that the TMC may contest in Uttar Pradesh in the coming election. “They (BJP) don’t allow anyone to play in Uttar Pradesh. But this time we will go there to play along with (Samajwadi Party president) Akhilesh Yadav’s party,” she said.

Meanwhile, around 600 metres away, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee while addressing a separate rally threatened to bring the country’s capital to a “standstill if the Centre doesn’t release the funds.”

“I am an adamant guy. If the funds are not released, I will take the fight to Delhi and bring the National Capital to a standstill. Be prepared for a bigger fight. I will be visiting some of the districts in April to organise the people for the fight,” said the chief minister’s nephew.

Reacting to chief minister’s allegations, West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said: “Chief minister Mamata Banerjee claims that the Centre was not releasing funds? Why would the Centre release funds? So that TMC leaders may stack that money in their houses like Partha Chatterjee? When Chatterjee was arrested, she claimed that she knew nothing.”

“Seeing her white sari and sandal, people had thought she was honest. But it was our fault. And now people have understood who is the principal thief,” Majumdar added.

Around the same time when Mamata Banerjee and her nephew were attacking the BJP in central Kolkata, the saffron party’s state unit leaders held a demonstration in Shyambazar area in north Kolkata against the alleged corruption in the state.

BJP legislator and leader of opposition in state legislative assembly Suvendu Adhikari, who was a part of the protest, said: “The TMC is running one of the most corrupt governments the people of West Bengal have ever witnessed since independence. TMC leaders are busy filling their pockets by selling jobs and taking bribes. The corrupt regime has to be ousted from power, and the BJP will get it done in the days to come.”

In another development, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)) and Congress leaders on Wednesday held a joint protest rally in Park Circus against the state and the central government.

The Congress leaders protested Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership cancellation and also sought a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into Adani issue while the Left targeted the state government over corruption allegations.

Even as the TMC supremo trained her guns on the BJP-led Centre on multiple fronts, her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, while citing the Surat court judgement on Rahul Gandhi, said that the TMC would file a court petition within a month against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly catcalling Mamata Banerjee ahead of the 2021 assembly polls and another against BJP legislator Suvendu Adhikari for insulting the SC/ST community in November 2022.