West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today came down hard on the Congress-led UPA government, claiming it was not cooperating with the state in providing foodgrains to people at low prices.
At a time when the prices of all food materials are sky high and the state government is trying to supply food grains at a low cost to the people, the central government is not bothered about the issue, Bhattacharjee told a rally at Sashan in South 24-Parganas district.
"We are providing rice at Rs two per kg to 2.67 crore people all over the state. We requested the Centre to provide us some grant so that sugar, pulses and mustard oil can also be given at low prices, but it is least interested," he said.
Dubbing the Congress as a "party of the rich which only knows how to serve itself and nobody else", he said "the people of West Bengal have long before understood this and so they have discarded the Congress and now Trinamool Congress, which is nothing but an off-shoot of the Congress, is trying to fill the vacuum left by it".
Slamming the Trinamool Congress, the chief minister said that it had set a dismal record of administration in the two panchayats it runs in South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore districts.
{{/usCountry}}Slamming the Trinamool Congress, the chief minister said that it had set a dismal record of administration in the two panchayats it runs in South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore districts.
{{/usCountry}}The Centre's own assessment is that these two are the worst performing panchayats in the state, he claimed.
"If a party cannot run a panchayat, how can it dream of running a state?" he wondered.
He claimed it was only the Left Front which had worked for the development of the people of the state.
"The state government has created job opportunities for the people and has opened the maximum number of factories in the state whereas Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had only made false promises of giving jobs to people and inauguration of trains," Bhattacharjee said.
He said people did not want false promises, they wanted safety, security and better services for the Railways.