Mamata to visit Delhi to meet PM on pending MGNREGS funds; targets BJP, CPM, but not Congress

 They have put four of our MLAs in prison, we will jail eight of their leaders, says Didi as a warning to opponents

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee during a party meeting, in Calcutta.: PTI picture.

Sougata Mukhopadhyay, TT, Calcutta, 23.11.23 :  Reiterating her pledge to return to Delhi with demands for pending money for MNREGS, rural housing and rural roads schemes, Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee announced her plans to visit the national Capital in December when Parliament is scheduled to be in session and attempt to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi with her party MPs by her side.

Banerjee even threatened to hit the streets of Delhi and launch an agitation if she failed to secure an audience with Modi.

Lashing out at the BJP for “using central agencies to selectively target TMC leaders”, Banerjee threatened to come back at her opponents with double vengeance. “They have put four leaders of our party in jail and slapped them with charges of theft. It’s my decision today that I will put eight of their leaders behind bars by reopening old and pending cases. Some of them face murder charges,” she said.

Speaking at the special meeting of Trinamul Congress leaders and workers at the Netaji Indoor Stadium from where Banerjee spelt out the party’s roadmap for the upcoming general elections, Banerjee targeted the BJP and CPI-M alike but, curiously, remained silent about the Congress, the political partner of the Left in Bengal.

“I will be visiting Delhi in the second or third week of December when the Parliament is in session and, along with my MPs, would seek an appointment with the Prime Minister. If we get that appointment, fine. Else I will be on the roads protesting. I have been assaulted by the CPI-M many times. I might as well be beaten up by your party,” Banerjee said in connection with her plans to renew agitation for the pending central dues for the state.

Banerjee also instructed her MLAs to sit in dharna at the base of the Ambedkar statue in the state Assembly House premises from November 28-30 in demand for release of central funds in MNREGS, PM Avaas and PMGSY schemes. On December 2-3, the party would hold protest rallies at every polling booth level of the state, Banerjee added.

Speaking up for the first time in support of her party’s MP Mahua Moitra who currently faces an expulsion recommendation from a parliamentary ethics panel in the wake of cash-for-queries charges, Banerjee said: “They now plan to throw Mahua out (of Parliament). But that will make her more popular. It’s only for three months. What she said inside the House, she will now say the same things in public. How does it matter? Who else but an idiot would think of doing this ahead of the elections?”

It bears recall that despite the initial silence, Moitra was recently appointed president of the party’s Krishnanagar organizational district right in the middle of the question-corruption controversy, interpreted by many as a show of faith by the TMC top brass in the leader with crucial organization responsibilities ahead of the general elections.

Putting the CPI-M in the same political bracket with the BJP, Banerjee lashed out: “How dare the CPM point fingers at us? They carried out multiple murders in Joynagar and still they dare to speak up? Those who sat on heaps of human skeletons, carried out social boycotts of detractors and severed their limbs don’t have the right to speak any more.”

“You have plummeted to zero in this state and that’s where you’ll remain no matter how hard you try,” she stated.