Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamul Congress national general secretary and MP from Diamond Harbour, demanded publication of a white paper by the finance ministry on the amount released by the Centre on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Awas Yojana.

Mr Banerjee wrote on his X handle: “During her budget reply which lasted over 100 minutes, the Hon’ble Finance Minister @nsitharaman made hundreds of false claims about and failed to mention Bengal’s deprivation even once. The Union Government claimed in Parliament that no state is being “denied any money.” But even 138 days & 3319+ hours later, @BJP4INDIA leadership has failed to provide a WHITE PAPER on MGNREGA and AWAS YOJANA since their 2021 defeat in WB.

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The stress of being on BORROWED TIME is becoming more with every such cover up.”

While participating in the discussion on Budget 2024, Mr Banerjee had alleged that the Centre had not paid a single paisa to Bengal in MGNREGA and Awas Yojana from 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 financial years. He said papers do not lie and urged the Union finance minister to release a white paper in the matter.

Chandrima Bhattacharya, state finance minister, said Nirmala Sitharaman had deliberately, during her reply to the debate on Union Budget 2024, lied to confuse people. “If she has the courage, she should publish a white paper to declare the amount the Centre had given to Bengal in the MGNREGA scheme in the past four financial years. It takes minutes these days to take out a print out of the money released and circulate it among the MPs. But she cannot do this as she does not have any paper as the Centre did not release funds, under MGNREGA since the BJP’s landslide defeat in the Assembly election in 2021,” she said, “When the country is celebrating the 75th year of the Indian Constitution, the BJP is playing all-out to destroy the federal structure of the country.” She said Bengal’s dues have reached a staggering Rs 1.71 lakh crore.

TMC’s Kunal Ghosh said a document published by the union Finance department shows that it had not paid any money to Bengal. He said “The Centre collects Rs 4.64 lakh crore as tax from Bengal but it feels enormous pain to clear the dues. He said following the initiative taken by Miss Banerjee, dues of 59 lakh job card holders have been cleared. “The highest number of fake job cards are found in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, but the Centre does not make any delay in clearing their dues,” he said.