Stop spreading canards against govt, Mamata warns Left

“The opposition always tries to put a spanner in our works and disrupt the projects taken up by the state government. Stop spreading canards,” she said while inaugurating a slew of projects at Netaji Indoor stadium on Friday evening.

Banerjee said the opposition often made unsubstantiated allegations of corruption against her government and cautioned them not to stall development projects. “The people of the state know what developmental work has been carried out throughout the state and they will vote for development,” she claimed.

Criticizing the erstwhile Left Front government, Banerjee said because of faulty policies the factory could not be set up in Singur and many factories downed their shutters because of the then government’s anti-industry stance. She maintained that investment proposals to the tune of nearly Rs 5 lakh crore investment proposals were made during the Bengal Global Business Summit in the past two years and about Rs 2 lakh crore had come in so far. “We believe that agriculture and industry should go hand in hand,” Banerjee remarked.

Banerjee said that no comparison could be drawn between the development projects taken up in the past five years and those taken up during the last 65 years. The TMC government has undertaken several development initiatives; from constructing rural roads to providing drinking water to villagers, from awarding scholarships to meritorious students to the development of minorities. “Research should be conducted to find out how so much work has been done such a small span of time” she remarked. “I have worked day and night without taking rest. But I am nobody. My officers have done an excellent job and they deserve a pat on the back.”

Banerjee said the people of the state were well acquainted with Lalgarh because of the notoriety of the area as every day one person was murdered during the Left Front regime. “But now the situation has totally changed and development efforts like construction of a bridge, setting up colleges, giving economic support to the people to do business has changed the economic and social scenario of the area.”

Lambasting the Left Front, she said that a lion’s share of state government’s earnings in the past five years had been spent repaying debt. “We had to pay Rs 1.40 lakh crore to clear the loan burden,” she said, adding that the Centre had also stopped 35 schemes and in many more the burden on the state government had increased. “CPI(M) had taken the money and I had to clear their loan burden. It is a real tragedy. More development work could have been carried out if there was no loan burden,” she rued.

Banerjee inaugurated new jetties at Garulia and Bhadreshwar. Four 150-seater steel vessels and four 100- seater wooden vessels were introduced. She also inaugurated four jetties that have been upgraded and laid the foundation stone for widening of Diamond Harbour Road at a cost of Rs 105 crore and widening of Barasat- Basirhat at a projected cost of Rs 108 crore. She also inaugurated a deer park called Harinalaya, an underground pedestrian subway connecting Eco Park and Mother’s Wax museum, model Ghum station and a statue of Maa Sarada at New Town.