The women’s wing of the Trinamul Congress launched a 32-hour-long sit-in in Siliguri on Monday in protest against the Centre’s alleged step-motherly attitude towards Bengal in the allocation of funds.

Led by state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, who is also the president of the Trinamul Mahila Congress, and Rajya Sabha member Mala Roy, hundreds of women workers of the party, along with leaders of different districts of north Bengal, congregated near Mainak tourist lodge off Hill Cart Road to launch the dharna.

“The demonstration has been organised here to protest against the Centre’s denial of funds for Bengal. Funds for different social welfare schemes have not been released for months and millions of people are facing inconveniences. People should learn how the BJP is acting against their interests,” said Bhattacharya.

The demonstration, Trinamul leaders said, is to exert pressure on the BJP. In north Bengal, the BJP is focusing on a number of districts ahead of panchayat polls and wants to retain the Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general election.

“In north Bengal, people had elected BJP MPs and MLAs. They should know that not a single elected representative of the party has approached the Centre to get the funds released. In fact, a section of leaders is openly saying they were instrumental in halting the release of funds,” said Gautam Deb, the mayor of Siliguri, who attended the dharna.

On May 3 and 4, the women’s wing of Trinamul had held a similar demonstration in Calcutta on the same issue. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had also joined the dharna, along with a number of ministers and party leaders.

Bhattacharya, while speaking at the demonstration, also slammed the Narendra Modi government for engaging central agencies against Trinamul with political interests. She referred to the recent interrogation of the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and claimed the intention was to disrupt the ongoing statewide outreach drive initiated by him.

“Thousands of people, including youths of our party, are participating in the ongoing campaign. This has left the BJP panicked. The party has thus used the agencies to summon Abhishek Banerjee for no reason. Their plan was to disrupt the campaign and they failed. He has resumed the drive with renewed vigour and is getting huge responses from people,” she said.