Amid USAID row, CPI(M) alleges TMC received foreign funds to win polls in West Bengal

Kolkata: Foreign funds routed through Ponzi scheme operators and non-profit organisations helped the Trinamool Congress win polls in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleged on Sunday amid the war of words between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress over an alleged attempt by a United States agency to interfere in the elections in India.

“Both TMC and BJP have used foreign funds to win elections. That is why they are not criticising each other on this issue,” Mohammed Salim, the secretary of the CPI(M)’s West Bengal state committee, told journalists on the second day of the four-day state conference of the party.

He made the comment amid a political row over alleged funding of $21 million by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for “voter turnout” in India.

Salim, a former member of the Lok Sabha, said that the TMC had received foreign funds through Ponzi scheme operators in West Bengal as well as non-profit organisations ahead of the 2011 state assembly elections.

The TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, had defeated the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the 2011 West Bengal assembly elections, ending the 34-year-long rule of the leftist parties in the state.

The CPI(M) and its allies over the past 14 years failed to regain the political space it lost to the TMC. The party at present neither has any MLA in West Bengal, nor any MP in the Lok Sabha from West Bengal.

An agitation against the Left Front government’s move to acquire agricultural land to set up industrial units in Nandigram and Singur had catapulted the TMC to power in 2011. The TMC retained power in the 2016 and 2021 elections too.

Salim, however, said on Sunday that the TMC had used foreign funds to hire goons and to rig the elections in West Bengal.

The allegation about the USAID funding for promoting voter turnout in India triggered a war of words between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress. Ever since the US DOGE announced on February 16 that it had ‘cancelled’ the USAID funding of $21 million for voter turnout in India, the BJP stepped up its attack on the Congress, accusing the main opposition party of allowing foreign powers to influence elections in India. The Congress, however, dismissed the allegation and sought to turn the table on the CPI(M).

Salim, however, is the first leader of a constituent of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc who attacked another constituent of the same bloc of the opposition parties.