The deaths of migrant workers from Malda in Mizoram after Wednesday’s collapse of an under-construction railway bridge came up for discussion in the Assembly on Thursday, with a BJP MLA blaming the Mamata Banerjee government for the lack of jobs.

Malda’s Habibpur MLA Joyel Murmu took up the Mizoram tragedy to attack the Mamata government.

“This is very painful as many from Malda, who migrated to Mizoram to earn a livelihood, lost their lives in a tragic accident. The joblessness in the state and the failure of the government to create employment opportunities in the state are responsible for the plight of the migrant workers and their families,” Murmu said in the Assembly.

The Malda district administration confirmed the deaths of 21 migrant workers in Wednesday’s mishap and added that two more persons were missing till Thursday evening.

Sources in the saffron camp said they planned to make it an issue in the Assembly a day after Mamata Banerjee lambasted Indian Railways for its poor performance under Narendra Modi’s regime in reference to the Mizoram tragedy. On Wednesday, she demanded a central government job for each migrant worker’s next-of-kin killed in the mishap.

The BJP is trying to make migrant workers an issue in Bengal politics and link it with the joblessness in rural Bengal.

When Murmu was talking about the problem of migrant workers in the House, the ruling party leaders didn’t contest. Trinamul, however, activated its leaders later to counter the BJP narrative and steer the discussion on how a central funds freeze for the 100 days’ job scheme led to the large-scale migration from Bengal.

“The issue of migrant workers is not new and lakhs of people from other states also come to work in Bengal. In the current context, the BJP is solely responsible for the plight of people as the Narendra Modi government has frozen the funds under the 100 days’ job scheme for Bengal. These leaders from Bengal (BJP) who are trying to blame us had claimed publicly that they asked Delhi not to send funds under the scheme,” said Kunal Ghosh, a Trinamul state general secretary.

The Centre stopped the release of Rs 6,500 crore — Rs 3,000 crore for wages and Rs 3,500 crore for material costs — under the rural jobs scheme for Bengal, citing anomalies. It did not allot funds for Bengal under this scheme for the current financial year, too.

Earlier in the day, leaders like BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar and leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari attacked the state government on the same lines as party MLA Murmu.

“The lack of job opportunities in West Bengal is forcing the people of the state to opt for jobs in distant places. Some of these jobs pose grave danger to their lives.........but the risks always lurk as they don’t possess the skills required for such jobs, yet they are left with no choice as the successive WB Govts have failed to generate employment opportunities nearby home,” Adhikari posted on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle.

The Nandigram MLA later told media in the Assembly that Bengal topped the country in contributing migrant workers.

“Data available to us shows there were 5.2 lakh migrant workers in 2011 before Trinamul came to power. Currently, the state has around 50 lakh migrant workers, the highest among all states,” he said, but did not cite the source of his data.

He also shied away from questions on how the rate of unemployment across India has gone up.

Women and child development minister Sashi Panja reminded the BJP of its failure in creating jobs. “Between 2017-2022, the number of EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) contributors increased only by a mere 1.2 million, despite a booming population, proving to be an epitome of @BJP4India’s failure. PM @narendramodi, any comments?” Panja wrote in her ‘X’ handle.