While Trinamul Congress, led by its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, staged a protest at Rajghat in New Delhi regarding the nonpayment of central dues to the West Bengal government, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, called for a CBI investigation into the alleged significant irregularities during the implementation of the 100-day job scheme in the state under MGNREGA.

Speaking to the media persons here on Monday, the Leader of the Opposition rubbished the allegations of the state’s ruling party that the Union government is deliberately holding back legitimate dues to the West Bengal government. “The Union government did not stop payment of legitimate dues. Rather it stopped misuse of funds under the central schemes in the state.

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In November 2022, when the work for linking AADHAR cards with the job cards under the MGNREGA scheme started, the total number of jobcard holders in West Bengal under this scheme was 3,88,86,457. After the AADHAR link task was completed in September this year, the number of job-card holders was reduced to 2,56,13,432.

This means that over one crore of fake job cards were cancelled in the process. It is high time that an investigation in the matter be handed over to the CBI,” Adhikari said. He also asserted that these extensive irregularities were orchestrated through a collaboration between leaders of the ruling party and certain block development officers, sub-divisional officers, district magistrates, and contractors associated with the state government.

“The respective panchayat heads used to make the recommendations for the job cards under the MGNREGA scheme. We have decided to speak to the Union ministry concerned so that a central agency probe in the matter is initiated at the earliest,” said Adhikari. He also claimed that only the governments of West Bengal and Kerala have not submitted detailed audit reports to the Union government on goods & services tax (GST) collected from these two states