Mamata Banerjee takes jibe at PM Modi, says he gives more money to BJP states
The West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo said that the Centre deprived the state government of ₹60,000 crore, and that actual devolution of funds in 2019-20 and 2021-21 were less than the funds allocated to the state under the Union Budget.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi allocates more money to the states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and less to those ruled by opposition parties.
“He kept ₹35,000 crore for Covid-19 vaccines. When [the] second wave hit, he allocated funds slowly…We asked for ₹3 crore, [but] he did not give and gave us ₹2 crore in six months,” the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Banerjee further claimed that the funds provided to the West Bengal government by the Centre is less than the actual budget allocated. She said that in the 2020-21 Union Budget, devolution of Central taxes for West Bengal was ₹58,962.55 crore, but the “actual devolution received was ₹44,737.1 crore,” thereby claiming that there was a reduction of ₹14,225.54 crore in the actual allocated funds.
The West Bengal chief minister said that the same reduction was noted in 2019-20 Union Budget allocation, too. “Similarly, in 2019-2020, [the] state did not receive a devolution amount of ₹11,000 crore,” Banerjee added.
She stated that the state will receive an outstanding amount of ₹33,314 crore from the Centre in the form of centrally sponsored schemes. “We are deprived of about ₹60,000 crore,” Banerjee said.
The TMC chief also spoke on the increasing petrol and diesel prices across India, saying that the ruling dispensation at the Centre earned ₹3.71 lakh crore through increased fuel prices from the people. “Don’t you think Narendra Modi is cutting the pockets of the common people and filling his own pockets?” she told ANI.
Notably, petrol prices in the national capital surpassed the ₹100-per-litre mark after the latest hike.
Her remarks come on a day the Union cabinet is undergoing an enormous reshuffle, with prominent names such as health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and minister for environment, forest and climate change Prakash Javadekar among those who resigned.