‘Even after 200 hours since Abhishek’s open challenge, BJP yet to come up with any response’
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday said that it has been 200 hours since their party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee threw an open challenge to the BJP-led Centre and asked them to produce a ‘white paper on the funds released in last three years’ under MGNREGA and Awas Yojana and also challenged any BJP leader to engage in a debate following their “baseless claims” about Bengal’s fund disbursement but not a single saffron brigade leader has accepted the challenge yet.
Senior Trinamool Congress leader Shashi Panja, during a Press conference on Friday, said that BJP is unable to accept Banerjee’s challenge of releasing a white paper to prove their allocation of funds to Bengal. “The BJP has not been present in any of the stages that we had prepared for them during Banerjee’s meetings. They have not presented any proof and we are still waiting. I would like to say that the BJP should attend our meetings and face the challenge,” Panja said.
Incidentally, Banerjee had challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to publish a white paper as the BJP claims that the funds have been released to Bengal. As the BJP claimed that they have released funds for Awas Yojana and MGNREGA, Banerjee had demanded a white paper. Panja also highlighted how the BJP failed to name Bengal candidates even in their fourth list. Regarding the issue of Delhi Chief Minister’s arrest, Panja said that BJP has been targeting the Opposition-ruled states before the elections. “We saw what happened with the Jharkhand CM and then the arrest of the Delhi CM. Will the Election Commission be able to take the initiative to conduct free and fair elections?” Panja asked.
She further added that her party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has sent two representatives, Derek O’Brien and Nadimul Haque to Delhi for supporting AAP and she has also extended her support to Sunita Kejriwal, wife of Arvind Kejriwal. Regarding the transfer of Bengal DGP, Panja stated that EC or other Central agency officials have not been transferred. This is a targeted approach and a question lies if the elections will be free and fair. Slamming the BJP for implementation of CAA, Panja said that BJP leader Shantanu Thakur said that he would fill out the CAA form, how could he be an elected minister if he is not a citizen? This creates fear among the people and they are emotionally affected resulting in suicides.
TMC leader Arup Chakraborty attacked the Centre over CAA after a 37-year-old youth committed suicide in Subhashgram due to the fear of the implementation of CAA. “Debashish Sengupta (37) died due to the inhumane law of CAA by the BJP-led Centre. The kin of the deceased said that he had suffered from panic attacks since the time CAA
was declared. He suffered from similar fear when NRC was mentioned as well. It is obvious that people would panic when they receive messages of Aadhaar cancellation from the UIDAI portal which is only accessed by the Centre.”
