Union Minister flags ‘discrepancies’ in use of funds; TMC slams ‘lies’

Senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee said the Union Minister is telling “lies to supress the truth.”

Addressing a press conference at BJP party office in Salt Lake area of the city, the Union Minister alleged that there have been discrepancies in the utilisation of MNREGA funds in Bengal.

“I wanted to meet them (Abhishek Banerjee and other TMC leaders in Delhi) and waited nearly two-and-a-half hours for them. But they kept shifting goalposts on the number of members of their delegation. Their claim that I ran away from Krishi Bhavan is a complete lie. I never refused to meet them. They are now leveling false allegations that I left through a rear exit. The TMC is spreading lies, they did not want to meet me, they just wanted to create drama,” she said.

“I am ready to hold talks with them whenever they want. But do they really want to address the real issue? What do they have to say on the allegations of irregularities in implementing the scheme? It is clear that rampant corruption has taken place. Instead of acting on the corruption charges, the TMC is busy diverting the people’s attention by staging protests. The Centre has always provided funds to the state, especially in the past nine yearss,”
said Jyoti.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and party MLAs, MPs and ministers, along with those engaged in MGNREGA work, recently staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and marched to the Rural Development Ministry at Krishi Bhawan where they were scheduled to meet Jyoti.

However, after an hour-and-a-half, the TMC leaders claimed that the minister refused to meet them, restricting the number of members in the delegation to five.

Reacting to the Union minister’s allegations, the TMC said that if she was indeed interested in holding talks, then she should have come to the protest venue outside Raj Bhavan.