Abhishek Banerjee Slams BJP Over Withheld Funds, Calls Modi Govt a Dictatorship

On Sunday, Abhishek Banerjee attacked the BJP once more over the withheld central funding owed to Bengal, charging that the saffron government was seeking to starve the state's populace after losing the 2021 Assembly elections.

The Trinamul Congress national general secretary issued a challenge to the Narendra Modi administration on the trip to Delhi, accusing it of operating like a dictatorship and warning the BJP that it would not hold power indefinitely.

"They won't be able to stop us, even if a thousand Narendra Modis or 10,000 BJP leaders show up. According to the nephew of Bengal's chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the never-ending tragic story of step-motherly treatment towards Bengal began in 1911 when the colonial British government moved the capital of undivided India from Calcutta to Delhi. "This fight is not limited to the protests on October 2 and 3, but will continue until the funds are released," he said.

"The PM's house cost Rs 20,000 crore to construct, but poor people were denied access to Rs 1.5 lakh for housing." He declared, "This is a dictatorship.

"They (the BJP) believe they will always be in power. The people will respond appropriately democratically if they believe they will torture and deny the people their rights, the Diamond Harbour MP continued.

Bengal's MGNREGS employment card holders have sent 50 lakh letters to Modi and Union Minister for Rural Development Giriraj Singh in support of Trinamul's main demand: the release of cash owed to the state by the BJP-led Centre. In Bengal, according to Trinamul, there are about Rs 1.15 lakh crore in central debts, of which over Rs 7,000 crore are related to the 100-day employment guarantee program.

In Delhi, Abhishek met with party MPs and ministers in the evening at Dum Dum MP Saugata Roy's house to strategize for the party's protest events on Monday and Tuesday.

The aunt-nephew team's March conception of the protest programs in Delhi has already through a number of rounds of plan revisions.

Mamata has been forced to miss the events in the national capital due to an injury to her already wounded left knee that she received during her tour to Spain last month. Abhishek will be their lone leader as a result.

He continued to criticize the saffron camp at the Calcutta airport after BJP state unit chief Sukanta Majumdar recently boasted in public that he would make one phone call to the federal government to guarantee the delivery of money owed to Bengal.

"He (Majumdar) recently informed journalists that a protest movement in Delhi is useless. He made it known that a single phone call from him would result in the payment of money to Bengal," stated Abhishek.

It is very evident from their behavior that their primary goal is to starve the Bengali people. They want to take away our ability to even protest their crimes. They have tried everything to stop us, he continued, from canceling our train and trip to Delhi to refusing permission for a meeting with a Union minister.

"Political battles ought to be reserved for elections."