TMC protests against Centre’s fund blockade, BJP’s ‘vendetta politics’

Kolkata: A rally was brought out in the city on Sunday evening by Trinamool Congress in protest against the Central government’s fund blockade for Bengal and the alleged misuse of Central investigative agencies for “vendetta politics”.

The protest march took place in South Kolkata and was led by Jadavpur MLA Debabrata Mazumder and party’s state general secretary and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh. Ghosh told the media that the protest is mainly against two causes.

He said firstly the Centre has been continuing to deprive Bengal of its funds for MGNREGA, Awas Yojana and other schemes. Ghosh said that his party has been trying to persuade the Centre in different ways to clear the funds but the BJP-led Union government has remained unmoved in their decision to release the money.

He further added that the second reason pertains to the alleged misuse of Central agencies such as CBI and ED against TMC leaders. Ghosh is of the opinion that the BJP-led Centre is doing so because it has realised it cannot fight TMC politically and hence are using these agencies as part of a “vendetta politics”.

He added that the BJP has still not been able to overcome its trauma of losing in the 2021 state Assembly elections and is aware that it does not have much ground either in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Central probe agencies have been probing several alleged scams in Bengal involving teacher recruitment, municipal recruitment, ration distribution and coal pilferage. TMC heavyweight leaders such as Partha Chatterjee and Jyotipriyo Mullick are already behind bars while the ED teams have been raiding the residences of other TMC leaders such as Sujit Bose, Tapas Roy and others.