Maya hits back at Jairam over MNREGS
BSP chief says UP one of the best in rural jobs
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday hit back at Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh for writing letters to her on the issue of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) by terming the minister’s action “cheap politics”.
“UP has performed better than other states in the implementation of the scheme...it is surprising that the Union minister has failed to see them,” Mayawati said.
She accused the minister of indulging in cheap politics as his letters were “first delivered” to mediapersons than to her. “It is clear that it is an attempt to gain political mileage in the next Assembly elections,” she said. Mayawati said that her government had taken action wherever irregularities had been detected. “In fact what the Union minister was reading before the media was the Action Taken Report of the UP government in cases of irregularities in the MNREGS implementation,” she said.
The BSP chief also expressed surprise that the Union minister has based his letters on the report of a State Quality Monitor, which had mentioned “minor irregularities”. Of the 22 reports submitted by the National Level Monitor, the state had acted only on 17, she claimed. She also referred to the action taken by her government on complaints of irregularities in the scheme and said that FIRs had been lodged in 117 cases and in 56 cases charge sheets had been filed.
Jairam Ramesh had accused the Mayawati government of shielding the officials who allegedly committed irregularities in the implementation of MNREGS.
