Abhishek Banerjee, national general secretary of Trinamul Congress urged people to vote after seeing the development that has taken place and not by listening to what they hear.

He inaugurated the Charial bridge and the second lane of the Budge Budge bridge this afternoon.

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Coming down heavily on the Centre, he said, “The Centre is sending central teams and the agencies to Bengal. They can send as many as ED and CBI teams they think to conduct raids, but we are not going to tolerate deprivation of those who had worked under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme.

He said the construction of the Charial bridge has fulfilled the demand of the people for the past five decades. “During the Left Front regime there were CPM MPs like Amal Dutta, Shamik Lahiri, but they did not do anything to carry out development of the area.” He said he would again come to the area next week to Maheshtala to inaugurate the drinking water project set up at an estimated cost of Rs 330 crore and repair of the road below the flyover.

He said he had laid the foundation stone of the bridge on 18 February, 2019 and within five years the bridge had been built. The bridge could have been opened one year ago but Covid came in the way and that delayed the inauguration by one year, he remarked.

The construction work began in October 2020 and Rs 56 crore have been spent to construct the bridge and for rehabilitation of the shop owners.

Batting for the Diamond Harbour model, Mr Banerjee said in the past 10 years, a sum of Rs 5,580 crore have been spent for the development of the area. “If the Prime Minister, home minister, finance minister can show that comprehensive development has taken place in their constituency, then I will quit politics. They will not be able to show as we keep our promises,” he said adding, “I try to address the demand of people and set up roads, make arrangements for drinking water. During Covid, our visitors went to every household to provide food to the people irrespective of political allegiance. In Diamond Harbour, 70,000 senior citizens have received pensions worth Rs 1,000 per month.”

He said he had won the election from Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat by 3.21 lakh votes in 2019 and people had voted for Trinamul Congress on the basis of development and not by the communal division which the BJP had tried to do.

He criticised the Centre and said it had failed to control the price of essential commodities. “The prices of vegetables, petrol, diesel, kerosene have gone up but the Centre is looking the other way,” he said adding “In times of need rest assured Trinamul Congress workers will be by your side trying to provide assistance.”