Four days after the midnight political showdown at Krishi Bhavan in Delhi, where a Abhishek Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress delegation was at the receiving end of force exerted by the Delhi Police following their failure to meet junior Union minister for rural development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti over pending central funds to Bengal, the minister herself landed in Calcutta and expressed her readiness to meet the party.
The minister reached Bengal, ostensibly, to thrash out with the agitating TMC leadership the contradictory positions held by the Centre and state over the withholding of funds to Bengal in schemes like the MNREGS and the PM Avaas Yojna for the last two years.
Her arrival, though, coincided with a day when the Trinamul’s continued dharna outside the Raj Bhavan hit the third consecutive day and a three-member party delegation met the Governor in Darjeeling seeking his intervention to retrieve the dues.
“I have brought all documents related to the disbursement of MNREGS and PM Avaas money by the centre,” the minister said at a press conference she held at the BJP party office in Salt Lake on Saturday afternoon.
“I am ready to sit with the Trinamul anywhere they want me to in this city. Even the state panchayat department is fine with me if they so prefer. But I doubt if they would agree to sit for talks. Because they don’t want to talk, they only want to carry on with their drama,” she added.
The minister’s call for talks was responded to with a counter-challenge from the TMC. “Let the minister come to our dharna platform and meet us here,” said Abhishek Banerjee.
Claiming “moral victory”, Banerjee added: “Only a few days ago, she had thrown us out of her office. Today, her arrival in Calcutta is itself proof that the Centre is under pressure because of our protests.”
Earlier this week, both Banerjee and his Parliament colleague Mahua Moitra had claimed that Sadhvi Niranjan had “escaped from her office back door" without meeting a 40-member party delegation comprising a section of party leaders and job card holders who had reached her Krishi Bhavan office to convey the angst of the deprived job victims and demand the lifting of funds embargo.
The Trinamul delegation was made to wait for over 90 minutes hours, the party has alleged.
Rubbishing the allegations, the minister said: “I never escaped from anywhere. On the contrary, I waited for them in my office for two and a half hours on that day. But the TMC showed no interest in holding the discussion and instead focussed on the drama they were so keen to hold.”
Responding to the “escape” allegation, Niranjan said: “It’s a lie. I enter the building every day from gate number 4 and exit my office using the same gate. That’s what I did last Tuesday as well. There is no back gate to my office.”
“Would I have come here if I had no interest in the talks?” she asked.
The minister reiterated the Centre’s position that the Bengal government repeatedly ignored corruption warnings sent by the Centre between 2019 and 2022. “The 2005 REGA empowers the Centre to stop funds under such circumstances and we have done nothing outside the law,” the minister said, while flanked by state BJP leaders Sukanta Majumdar and Suvendu Adhikari on her two sides.
“Why aren’t they moving court if we have done anything wrong?” she asked. “Because they know that if they do, the court will immediately order a CBI inquiry in the alleged corruption.”