CPM admits PLA fund diversion

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on the WB audit was not only not final, Naidu added, but it would be subject to a system of checks and balances laid down in the State Assembly ending with the public accounts committee, headed by Congress Opposition member Subroto Mukherjee. “If after these considerations any diversion or misuse is established, appropriate action, including recoupment of the diverted amount, will be taken,” he said.

The calling attention motion on the WB scam saw the Left come up with a spirited defence in the face of the combined BJP-Congress onslaught. Left veterans like Gurudas Dasgupta and Ashok Mitra were the star defendants, along with Nilotpal Basu who admitted that “it is true there was some diversion (but) in all states there is some diversion.”

Mitra, acknowledging that “it’s not as if State Governments don’t make mistakes,” pointed out that such a spirited discussion on panchayat funds might even lead to some people in the rural population interpreting this as an attack by the “urban crowd” on money that should rightfully belong to the panchayats.

John Fernandes of the Congress, calling for a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the scam, asked why the funds, even if they had been diverted from one account to another had not been replenished over time. He accused the State Government of using the money for reinvigorating its party cadres. “That’s why the Left Front government has been in power for the last 20 years…but this is people’s money and it just can’t disappear,” he added.

But seeking to turn the tables on the Opposition, Dasgupta said that these charges were being brought with malicious intent to discredit the State Government at a time when the WB Congress was being challenged from within by Mamata Bannerjee. “This is being done to boost the sagging image of the Congress and keep Mamata at bay. This will not succeed,” he said.