Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will start her two-day dharna (sit-in demonstration) in front of the Ambedkar statue on Red Road from Wednesday to protest against the Centre’s alleged discriminatory behaviour towards Bengal. She will continue her protest movement till Thursday evening.
“From noon tomorrow, I will start a sit-in demonstration with the demand for money for 100 days work, for Awas Yojana (rural housing), for rural roads and the Aikyashree scheme. The Centre will have to answer why funds for OBCs have been stopped and why democracy is being killed,” Banerjee said while inaugurating the Pathashree scheme from Singur on Tuesday.
Referring to her 14-day dharna in Singur in 2008, Banerjee said she had deliberately chosen the soil of Singur for the programme ahead of her sit-in demonstration at the Ambedkar statue. In 2008, Banerjee had led a dharna on behalf of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) demanding the return of 400 acres of land that was forcibly taken from unwilling farmers by the erstwhile Left Front government.
The TMC supremo alleged that there was a conspiracy of killing her party supporters by driving a truck on them at night during the programme but the attempt was somehow thwarted.
“The CPI(M) who have now allied with the BJP had tried to create false propaganda that my movement stopped trucks and led to the rise in the price of vegetables,” she said.
Banerjee, who had announced her sit-in demonstration programme on March 21, had pointed out that Rs 1,15,000 crore under different schemes are due that includes funds for 55 lakh rural houses and rural roads too. However, the state has continued its development path despite the Centre’s step-motherly attitude by taking up construction, repair and upgradation of 12,000 km of rural roads from Tuesday itself. Banerjee, after her dharna, is likely to announce programmes at the block level in the districts against the Centre’s deprivation.
A senior TMC leader who refused to be named added that Banerjee’s dharna programme is also an attempt to reach out to all regional parties and at the same time also project how Bengal has been neglected.