On a day Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari came up with a fresh set of allegations over the ration distribution scam, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee made it clear she hasn’t budged an inch from her support for arrested minister Jyotipriya Mullick.
“Of course he is a minister of the state government. But do you know how (hard) he worked for the digitisation of ration cards?” Banerjee told reporters at state secretariat Nabanna in response to a question of central agencies raiding and arresting ministers.
“Do you know how they (the food and supplies department) cancelled nearly one crore fake ration cards?” Banerjee continued lauding the department of which Mullick was a former minister.
“They tried together to procure paddy from the farmers. It’s a green revolution, mind it,” the chief minister declared.
Banerjee’s support for the department came a day after the Trinamul Congress, in its bid to politically counter the former food minister’s arrest, highlighted the Centre’s praises for the department that arrived barely two months ago.
“@BJP4Bengal leaders left red-faced! Not only did @PiyushGoyal verbally praise the substantial demand in West Bengal and the efficiency of its processes during a meeting with our Minister of Food and Supplies, @Rathinghoshtmc, but the @fooddeptgoi has taken an additional step by issuing an open letter of commendation for our ration distribution system,” a post on the party’s X timeline read.
“GoWB has earned high praise for its efforts in: Digitizing its ration system to ensure smooth delivery; and Providing detailed information to the Central Govt. on ration uptake and delivery every month. Proving the naysayers wrong once again!” the post went on to add.
Banerjee, though, was cautious to refrain from commenting on the merits of the case which got Mullick arrested. “I will not respond to the legal part of this issue because the accused will defend themselves. I will only wish for their safe and sound health,” she said.
Adhikari, on the other hand, took to social media to claim that it is, in fact, the procurement of paddy angle which encapsulates the lion’s share of the scam rather than the distribution angle which the Enforcement Directorate seems to be currently focusing on in its probe of the alleged irregularities.
“The Ration Distribution Scam in WB is just the tip of the iceberg. The real iceberg of corruption is fake Paddy Procurement. Hundreds of crores have been siphoned in this manner,” the BJP leader posted on X.
“The Food and Supplies Department has been registering the names of the farmers who were supposedly willing to sell their harvest at MSP. In the year 2017-18, the number of registered farmers was 4,64,616. The number rose to 28,15,107 in 2021-22; with a cumulative addition of 5,46,598 farmers in the said year only,” Adhikari’s post explained.
“I would like to kindly urge the @dir_ed to verify the details of the farmers, as my reliable sources within the Department confirm that more than 60% of them are fake,” he claimed.
Adhkari claimed that the payment made for “fake procurement of paddy” would account for “more than 50% of the actual procurement”, were done through the Samavay Krishi Unnayan Samitis (paddy procurement cooperative bodies), which are controlled by ruling party leaders. The leader stated that rice mills which procure paddy make payments to the SKUS-es who, in turn, deposited the sum into bogus accounts.
“An audit of these SKUS and tallying the accounts where the amounts were deposited would unearth the Scam. Believe me the scale of the Scam would be shockingly huge, even by the standards of the corrupt TMC Ministers,” Adhikari maintained.
Lashing out at Adhikari, albeit without naming him, Banerjee threatened to dig the BJP leader’s own backyard for damning evidence of corruption. “I am just thinking aloud… Some people own 60-70 fishing trawlers, many benami properties, petrol pumps and crores of rupees stashed away. How can they be so loud-mouthed? We are recovering documents as well. We did not do this before,” Banerjee said, accusing her opponent of making claims in a one-sided manner.
She continued: “Only recently have we made it mandatory for all development authorities to take cabinet approval before leasing out lands. But did we question those who headed the Haldia Development Authority previously during their tenure as ministers on which land was sold and at what price?”
“Similarly for the Digha Development Authority, we asked no questions about the land that was parted with, about the 600 hotels which have come up there. Major revelations could be unearthed if we start digging,” the chief minister said.
Responding to Banerjee, Adhkari wasted little time in throwing his counter-challenge to the Trinamul supremo. “The lands were allotted to many TMC leaders, ministers and MPs, businessmen and bureaucrats having close links with Didi. All allotments were made as per her instructions and I have retained evidence of that. Let there be an inquiry into who recommended the disbursal of the plots and I will present the list of beneficiaries alongside relevant documents,” the BJP leader said.
