Accusing the Centre of withholding Rs 1.15 lakh crore due to West Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee, national general secretary of Trinamul Congress said on Thursday that unable to take on Mamata Banerjee politically, the BJP is punishing the people of the state.

Banerjee was speaking at a meet-the-press programme organized by the Kolkata Press Club this afternoon.

“Payment of the workers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a Constitutional obligation. After failing to defeat Mamata Banerjee politically, the Centre has stopped the payment meant for 2.64 crore workers under 100 days work. They have not been getting money for the past two years. The Centre has collected Rs 10 lakh crore as GST from Bengal from 2017,” he said.

“The Centre has not paid Rs 40,000 crore to repair the damages caused by Amphan,” he added.

The TMC leader said, “We have approached the Central government and requested it most politely to clear our dues. We have approached the prime minister and the minister for rural development, but all our efforts failed to yield results. We have planned to take the people to Delhi to voice our demand.”

He said never in the past more than 1.56 lakh Opposition candidates have filed their nomination in the ensuing Panchayat election. “During the Panchayat election that had been conducted by the CPIM in 2003 and 2008, opposition candidates were not allowed to file the nomination. The CPIM is such a shameless party that it has joined hands with the BJP and fielded candidates.”

Asked to comment on the statement of the governor that the State Election Commission is responsible for the reign of terror in the rural areas, Banerjee said, “He is carrying out the order of Delhi. I would have been very happy had he visited the house of the next of kin of those who died in the Coromandel Express train accident. But that would not give him political mileage,” he said, adding, “I urge the Centre to send such an erudite, scholarly man to Manipur where people are being killed every day.”

Commenting on dynastic politics he said, “The Centre should table a bill in the Parliament to put an end to this. I will be first person to give up politics. But how can the saffron party bring such a bill when many of their leaders are involved in dynastic politics,” he said, adding six family members of Adhikari family are involved in politics.

Banerjee said, “We all want that the election should be peaceful and for this, the Opposition parties and the media should be more responsible.”