New Delhi, Oct 3: West Bengal Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday demanded a CBI inquiry against the state government for issuing “fake” job cards and “siphoning off” the money sent by the centre for various schemes.
“West Bengal government siphoned off 4 to 5 thousand crore rupees out of Rs 54,000 crore sent by the Modi government to West Bengal under the centrally sponsored schemes including MNREGS and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin ” the BJP MLA from Nandigram told reporters after meeting Union Minister Niranjan Sadhvi Joyti here.
Adhikari, who crossed over to the BJP from the Trinamool Congress in late 2020, humbled state chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in next year’s Assembly poll.
Both the CBI and ED are probing the alleged coal scam in West Bengal. But Adhikari said he also wanted the CBI to look into the MNREGS scam under which “fake jobs” were allegedly created against payment of money.
Meanwhile, the TMC has accused the BJP-led NDA government of withholding Rs 15,000 crore in MNREGS dues for which it protested at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday. Trinamool Congress National General secretary Abhishek Banerjee spearheaded the TMC protest in Delhi.
After the two-day protest in the national capital – the party had held a sit-in protest at Rajghat on Monday – a TMC delegation led by its Abhishek, and senior leaders and MPs arrived at Krishi Bhawan to meet Niranjan Sadhvi Joyti over the issue of MNREGS funds.
Abhishek, party leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien and other lawmakers were detained by the Delhi Police when they staged a dharna inside Krishi Bhawan after being denied a meeting with the Union Minister.
“We were scheduled to meet Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti at 6 pm today, we waited for 90 minutes, after which we were informed that she would not be able to meet us.
“Sadhvi Niranjan met Suvendu Adhikari today at 4 pm but we were made to wait here. If she doesn’t want to meet us, then it’s okay. But we will not go anywhere from here. We will remain sitting here”, the TMC MP said in a video shared by his party on social media platform X.
Banerjee along with TMC lawmakers, state ministers and supporters including MGNREGA workers staged a protest at the Jantar Mantar, a day after holding a two-hour sit-in at Rajghat on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary before being evicted by the police.
BJP leader Adhikari, however, called TMC’s Delhi protest a “political campaign” to counter its “receding mass base”.
Earlier, Union Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh alleged that the West Bengal government issued 25 lakh fake MNREGS job cards, through which crores of government funds were siphoned off.
He also alleged that the state government was not cooperating with the Centre in the investigation
