Mamata Banerjee on Thursday threw the gauntlet at the BJP by announcing “Dilli chalo (march to Delhi)” to demand the release of central dues to Bengal.
“Things will happen again. We will go to Delhi again,” said the chief minister and Trinamul supremo, again giving a call for this movement that she and her nephew and party leader Abhishek Banerjee had declared in March this year for getting Bengal its dues from the Centre.
“We will go to Delhi in the second or third week of December, during the Parliament session with all our MPs. I will seek an appointment with the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). If he doesn’t give us time, the roads will show us the way forward,” added Mamata.
Trinamul has claimed that Bengal has central dues amounting to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore, with around Rs 15,000 crore on account of the MGNREGS and Awas Yojana alone.
“If they don’t give us time…. if they have us beaten up, so be it. We (Trinamul’s old guard, led by her) have all been forged in the CPM era here, been thrashed by them. If they beat us up in Delhi too, we will take some more blows. But we will continue the fight,” said Mamata to loud cheers from the audience.
The movement so far took place early in October in Delhi and Calcutta, led by Trinamul general secretary Abhishek in the absence of Mamata who was unwell. On October 9, Abhishek — the Trinamul national general secretary — had conditionally paused the movement, after a meeting with governor C.V. Ananda Bose, attributing the decision to advice from Mamata. Abhishek had given the BJP-led Centre time till October 31 to suitably respond to Trinamul’s demands for the release of funds, failing which he had warned of a wider, more intense agitation led by Mamata.
On Thursday, Mamata said prior to the Delhi visit, the movement would first be resumed with a two-hour dharna on November 28, 29, and 30, by all the MLAs of her party at the base of the B.R. Ambedkar statue on the Bengal Assembly premises.
“On December 2 and 3, our party workers will hold protest marches in every booth…. Everyone must be involved.... I don’t want anyone to be left out in this fight,” said Mamata, who is in the process of turning the issue of the frozen central government funds into a major Lok Sabha election plank.
She also urged the people of the state to demand answers on central funds from the BJP’s “babus from Delhi” when they come to Bengal.
“In any case, this government’s (the BJP-led central government's) time is up. It will last another three months. Delhi will be conquered. But before they go, we will get our people their rightful dues,” added Mamata.
