Besides Mamata’s sit-in, TMC to hold block-level protests against Centre

The Trinamool on Friday reaffirmed that party chief Mamata Banerjee will stage a two-day protest in Kolkata starting March 29.

The Bengal-BJP president Sukanta Majumdar had earlier pointed out that day 2 of the proposed dharna is on the same day as the festival of Ram Navmi.

The sit-in, to take place at Ambedkar’s statue in Kolkata, is “to protest against the BJP-led Centre’s decision to withhold funds under various heads.”

The party sees the fund freeze as a ‘political vendetta’. Similar protests will also take place across all blocks in the state to ‘appraise’ the people about the Centre’s ‘stepmotherly’ attitude towards Bengal.

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Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary, will also lead protests of Trinamool’s student and youth wings on March 29.

A party release claimed that the Centre has acknowledged in writing that “there is no corruption in the Awas Yojana scheme”, yet it has refused to release Rs 8,200 crores for this scheme, and this is affecting lakhs of beneficiaries.

The 100-day rural job fund for Bengal is also on hold since December 2021, the party has said.

“Despite the Centre’s political vendetta, the Mamata Banerjee government has not imposed any additional tax on the people and has instead brought people-centric schemes,” the party has said.

The state is also to commence a new scheme on March 28, Rastashree, under which, rural roads stretching 12,000 km, will be constructed.

In a press interaction, on Friday, senior Trinamool minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, claimed that three political parties are talking in unison to face Banerjee in the state.