Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee is extending financial aid to around 3,000 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) job card holders in West Bengal deprived of their dues, party sources said on Monday.
Mr. Banerjee has started sending letters to the MGNREGA workers who participated in Trinamool’s protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in October.
BJP leader Dilip Ghosh dubbed the financial aid as a “bribe” before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“Abhishek Banerjee had promised during the agitation by Trinamool Congress in New Delhi in early October that if in two months the Centre did not clear the dues, he will make sure that the job card holders are assisted by the party. Since Sunday evening, he has been sending out letters and providing financial assistance,” the party stated.
‘Larger protest soon’
In the letters addressed to the affected workers, Mr. Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP, expressed his empathy and said that a larger protest than the previous one will be launched in the coming days. “Approximately, 3,000 will be sent [the aid]. But we are not disclosing the remuneration,” he added.
In October, Mr. Banerjee along with Trinamool MLAs, MPs, ministers and MGNREGA workers protested at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. The protestors had claimed that when they went to meet Union Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti at Krishi Bhawan, she declined after making them wait for about an hour and a half.
Following this, the Trinamool organised a five-day sit-in outside Raj Bhawan in Kolkata to protest against the alleged withholding of West Bengal’s MGNREGA dues by the Centre.
‘Money power’
Reacting to Mr. Banerjee’s decision to provide financial assistance to deprived job card holders, Mr. Ghosh said: “The Trinamool now needs to use money power to bring people to its rallies and programmes. As it took several people to Delhi, it now needs to pay them. This financial assistance is nothing but a bribe before the Lok Sabha polls.”
Articulating the Trinamool’s strategy for its ongoing agitation demanding clearance of West Bengal’s dues under MGNREGA by the Centre, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee last week announced plans to visit the national capital in mid-December.