Abhishek Banerjee announced on Tuesday that the Trinamul Congress’s agitation in New Delhi for the rights of central schemes’ beneficiaries had just begun and Mamata Banerjee would lead a much larger protest programme that would be attended by one lakh people at the national capital within two months.
Addressing a programme at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Tuesday to press the Centre to clear the dues for Bengal, the Trinamul national general secretary said: “Our supreme leader was supposed to lead this, but she was advised against it by doctors… she has been checking up on us every hour, over the past three days.”
“We will bring one lakh people here and Mamata Banerjee will lead (the programmes) here from the front. This is my challenge to the saffron regime, stop us if you can,” he added.
The challenge came not long before Abhishek led a march by a delegation of 40 senior Trinamul leaders to the Krishi Bhavan. They were carrying 50 lakh letters addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union rural development minister Giriraj Singh from Bengal’s deprived beneficiaries of central schemes.
Junior Union rural development minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti was supposed to meet the delegation at the Krishi Bhavan. Till 9pm, the meeting had not taken place. Then, Abhishek and others started a sit-in protest inside the Krishi Bhavan
Earlier in the day, Abhishek had said: “They would be fooling themselves if they mistake our courtesy for weakness. We bow our heads before none but the people.”
“We challenge the saffron regime from right here, their very seat of power,” he said, adding that if the Centre was unable to satisfactorily respond to the demands, he would announce the next round of programmes after meeting his party’s leaders and workers assembled at the Ambedkar Bhavan. “This agitation is not over yet, it is just the beginning.”
Abhishek mocked the “feeble and ludicrous” logic put forward by various leaders of the saffron camp to counter the Trinamul dispensation’s claims on the “step-motherly” treatment of Bengal by the Centre.
“For instance, all figures being given out by all these people in Delhi and Bengal, in their frantic media conferences to divert attention from our programmes. Why can’t any of you give the figures of money disbursed for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years? Of the total dues of Rs 1.15 lakh crore, if any of their leaders can show even a paisa sent to Bengal in these two years, I will retire from politics,” the Diamond Harbour MP said.
Mocking Union home minister Amit Shah and others at the Centre for allegedly throwing everything at them to prevent the agitation from succeeding, the 35-year-old leader said such efforts would have been taken for the restoration of peace in strife-torn Manipur.
“The extent of deployment of forces by Amit Shah every step of the way, for us, makes it seem like a battlefield in an ongoing war with China,” said Abhishek.
“Manipur remains ablaze, but every force available to them is here instead, to surround us,” he added. “Every obstacle you placed on our path, hoping we would not be able to do this, failed. Were we not able to do it despite all of that? Because our spine remains upright and our supreme leader is called Mamata Banerjee.”
Abhishek told the people they were more powerful than they gave themselves credit for and urged them to unseat Modi next year.
“The remote control that Narendra Modi wields … remember, you (the people) have a remote control, in the form of the buttons on the electronic voting machines, next year,” said Abhishek.
“Next year, cast your votes on the sole priority of your rights. You will achieve what you seek,” he added. “Modi buys a plane for himself for Rs 8,500 crore when he could have done so for Rs 500 crore. With the remaining Rs 8,000 crore, lakhs of deprived beneficiaries in Bengal could have been paid.”
