Trinamul Congress MP from Diamond Harbour and party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee today lambasted the BJP-led Centre for depriving Bengal deliberately.
Taking part in a debate on Union Budget in the Lok Sabha Mr Banerjee has criticised the Centre for not clearing the dues worth Rs 1.7 lakh crore, which is still due to Bengal under various heads. He alleged that this is a calculated move to cause a dent in the growth of Bengal. The state’s due worth Rs 7,000 crore on MGNREGA has not been cleared as yet, depriving 59 lakh poor workers.
“As a citizen of India, you earn, you pay tax. You spend, you pay tax. You sell, you pay tax. Then you pay tax on things that are already taxed from the money that has been already taxed,” he remarked.
He said “half-federalism” is being carried out in the state and explained what he had meant by the term half-federalism. He maintained, “Let us come to half-federalism. All the members sitting in the house never heard of this phrase. This is a phase I have coined. Why do I say half-federalism? I will give an example to understand it better.”
He explained that in Bihar, BJP ally JD(U) has 12 seats, which means BJP has 12 MPs in Bihar. In Bengal, BJP has 12 MPs. BJP is in power in Bihar but not in Bengal. So, Bihar gets bonanza and Bengal gets blockade, this is half-federalism.
He called the NDA’s government’s policy as “reverse Robinhood policy.” He said Robinhood used to take money from the rich which was later distributed among the poor. But the case with the NDA is just the opposite. Corporate loans worth thousands of crores given to the rich which is the tax payers’ money, have been waived while the poor farmers struggling with debts, continue to suffer. “The government claims to have no money to increase subsidies on essential commodities yet it slashes corporate tax rates giving billionaires an even bigger slice of the pie. This is not economic justice. This is economic favouritism at its worst.”