The Trinamul Congress’s senior leadership on Sunday held a rally here against frozen funds due to Bengal from the Centre, with plans afoot to bring back focus on "central deprivation" as a major poll plank in the state for the general election.

The ruling party’s protest march, between Golpark and the Hazra crossing, was led by urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim and its south Calcutta organising district unit chief Debasish Kumar. Calcutta South MP Mala Roy, Trinamul state president Subrata Bakshi, and state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar were also present.

“The Centre must release these blocked funds at once. Their freezing of the funds due to Bengal is unconstitutional. We are going to keep intensifying our movement till the Centre does the needful,” said Hakim.

Trinamul claims Bengal has central dues amounting to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore, of which around Rs 15,000 crore is on account of the MGNREGS and the Awas Yojana alone.

Trinamul chief Mamata met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month, demanding the prompt release of the frozen central dues in a time-bound manner, to which, according to her, he agreed and proposed the setting up of a joint meeting, comprising officials from the Centre and the state government to work towards a resolution. That was the fourth meeting between the chief minister and the Prime Minister on the issue.

Recently, senior officials from Bengal faced questions over non-compliance with central guidelines on names of logos of centrally sponsored schemes in the state during a meeting with the Centre over the dues.

A senior state government official said that they tried to convince the central government officials by presenting facts and figures that establish that the state has initiated steps to rectify problems whenever the central teams pointed out any anomaly.

With funds release remaining unlikely, Trinamul sources said Mamata plans to rejuvenate the issue as a major poll plank for Bengal ahead of the general election, knowing that the “stepmotherly” treatment by the Centre is a spot of bother for the BJP in Bengal.

“She will breathe new life into the issue, which had sort of been relegated to the sidelines much to the dislike of (her nephew and) the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. She will start talking about it again, almost in every single public address, starting with her north and central Bengal tour,” said a Trinamul MP.

Pressure from Mamata to press the pause button resulted in the loss of momentum on October 9 on the movement in Delhi and Calcutta for the release of frozen central dues. This reportedly irked Abhishek, who has largely been keeping to his Lok Sabha seat of Diamond Harbour since.

“The renewed interest in this issue will not only help in cornering the BJP but also, somewhat, placate Abhishek,” said a Trinamul source.