December 26, 2021. This was the date on which West Bengal last received funds from the Centre for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). It was within months of the BJP’s defeat at the hands of the Trinamool Congress in the 2021 Assembly election in West Bengal. While the Centre said that widespread corruption at the grassroots level was the reason for stopping the funding, political observers saw a deeper political strategy behind it. They said the aim was to neutralise the advantage the Trinamool enjoyed because of its dole politics and system of creating beneficiaries through the disbursal of funds, a strategy the BJP is itself following successfully in various States.
It has been more than two years now, and the West Bengal government and the Narendra Modi government continue to be locked in a bitter war of attrition over the Centre withholding funds for critical rural welfare schemes like MGNREGA, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the National Health Mission (NHM), the Jal Jeevan Mission, and others.
After the State government’s appeals fell on deaf ears, the Trinamool Congress launched its second round of protests within a span of six months and announced that it would disburse over Rs.3,700 crore to 24 lakh job card holders, whose wages were due for the past two years.
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According to the State government, around Rs.1.16 lakh crore is due from the Centre for various schemes; of which the MGNREGA dues amount to around Rs.6,911 crore (Rs.3,732 crore against wage liability and Rs.3,179 crore against non-wage liability). The State government also claimed that the Centre had not released funds for 11,01,731 houses sanctioned under the PMAY “in spite of the State’s special initiative for identifying deserving households”.
Trinamool Congress MLAs protest in the State Assembly in November 2023 against the denial of funds by the Central government. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, dated December 20, 2023, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote: “I have in the past flagged these issues and also personally met you on three different occasions seeking your personal intervention. It saddens and pains me that there has been no positive response.” She pointed out that depriving the State of its share of resources from the Central pool has “pushed millions into untold misery and poverty”, and this deprivation is “not only unfair but also unpardonable”.
While stopping the funding, the Centre invoked Section 27 of the MGNREGA, which states that the Centre “on receipt of any complaint regarding the issue or improper utilisation of funds granted under this Act in respect of any Scheme if prima facie satisfied that there is a case, cause an investigation into the complaint made by any agency designated by it and if necessary, order stoppage of release of funds to the Scheme and institute appropriate remedial measures for its proper implementation within a reasonable period of time”. And, for the financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24, no funds under MGNREGA were allocated for West Bengal.
The route of protest
Rather than move the court, the Trinamool chose the route of protest to take on the Centre politically. Mamata’s nephew and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee created a stir by spearheading a movement in October last year, and even staging a peaceful protest in Delhi. Two months later, in December, Mamata led a delegation to meet Modi. Subsequently, at the instance of the Calcutta High Court on January 18, a four-member committee was set up, with officers from the Centre and the State, the State Accountant General, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).
TMC supporters line the route as West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose’s convoy passes in North 24 Parganas on February 12 in protest against the Centre not releasing funds to the State. | Photo Credit: Saikat Paul/ANI
On January 31, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Leader of the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha, approached Modi in Parliament, requesting him to intervene in the matter. According to Bandyopadhyay, the Prime Minister told him, “I am at present reading the CAG report. You also please see it.” The same day, Sukanta Majumdar, State BJP president, and Gaurav Bhatia, the party’s national spokesperson, held a press conference in Delhi, in which they alleged that the CAG report highlighted financial irregularities in West Bengal. According to the BJP, the State government has not provided the Utilisation Certificates for funds making up a total of Rs.1.95 lakh crore. “This means nobody knows where this money went, or to whom it went,” said Majumdar. According to Bhatia, what happened in West Bengal was “the mother of all scams”.
With the Centre showing no signs of giving in to the State government’s appeals and agitation threats, Mamata launched a 12-day protest in central Kolkata from February 2. At the dharna site, where she was present for the first two days, Mamata promised that her government would clear the dues of 24 lakh workers who were not paid their MGNREGA wages by the end of February. The State had set aside over Rs.3,700 crore for this purpose. In another letter to the Prime Minister, refuting the allegations made by the BJP over the CAG report, she wrote that the observations made in the report were “incorrect and have been made without application of due diligence and examination of the procedure for submission of Utilisation Certificates as per Government of India guidelines”.
Mamata said in her letter that the audit report for 2021-22 claimed that there was a delay in the submission of Utilisation Certificates for Rs.2,29,099 crore from 2002-03 to 2020-21. “However, on scrutiny of the observations of the C&AG, it is found that the concerned Department of the State Government had submitted Utilisation Certificates on time to the respective Ministries of the Government of India in the prescribed format against the allocation/sanctions made under different schemes by the Government of India.”
A delegation of MPs led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on December 20, 2023. | Photo Credit: ANI
She also said that from 2002 to 2011, it was the CPI(M)-led Left Front that was in power in the State, and her government was not prepared to take responsibility for what happened during the previous regime. On February 6, in the midst of the raging controversy over the CAG report, the Enforcement Directorate raided the residences of private individuals and government employees in connection with the alleged irregularities with the MGNREGA funds.
Highlights
- On December 26, 2021, West Bengal received its last funds from the Centre for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
- The BJP claimed that the CAG report exposed financial irregularities, with the State government failing to provide Utilisation Certificates for funds totaling Rs. 1.95 lakh crore.
- In response, the Trinamool government announced the Karmasree scheme, vowing to create rural employment independently and guaranteeing at least 50 days of work for the impoverished.
“Fiscal federal terrorism”
The Trinamool struck back, alleging that the Centre was indulging in “fiscal federal terrorism”. On February 7, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar said in Parliament: “West Bengal has been purposely targeted only for the fact that the people of West Bengal rejected Mr Modi and Mr (Amit) Shah, who came 22 times to campaign (for the 2021 Assembly election). People of West Bengal are being made to pay for the sin of rejecting the BJP. Rs.1.15 lakh crore is due to us. PMAY—[Rs.]933 crore, NHM—[Rs.]830 crore, Gram Sadak—[Rs.]770 crore, Swachh Bharat—[Rs.]350 crore. A total of 1.15 lakh crore that is due to the State has been purposely, deliberately, maliciously, malevolently stopped so that the people of Bengal cannot have any form of ‘garib’ livelihood. They are deprived of water, they are deprived of toilets, deprived of health facilities, they are deprived of everything.”
In a clear message to the Centre that the State government would be creating its own means of generating rural employment in the absence of Central funds, the Trinamool government announced a new scheme, Karmasree, to ensure at least 50 days of work for the poor from May onwards. It also claimed that in the past two years, it had created 39 crore man-days of work at a total expenditure of Rs.8,297 crore through different departments.
Although the issue of the Centre withholding funds has been a burning political topic for more than two years, political observers said that Mamata’s protest this time was somewhat lacklustre and that it failed to get the kind of public attention the party hoped for. If the Chief Minister intended to use the issue of deprivation of the poor as an election tool ahead of the Lok Sabha election, the relatively tepid response to her protest, compared with the earlier agitation led by Abhishek Banerjee, may act as a dampener. Abhishek not only took the protest to the capital, but his prolonged dharna outside the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata elicited an assurance from the Governor that he would intervene on behalf of the State. In fact, Abhishek’s absence at the dharna site this time sparked speculation about serious political differences between him and his aunt.
A TMC supporter wears a portrait of Mamata Banerjee during a sit-in protest in Kolkata, on February 3, demanding the release of Central funds for different welfare schemes. | Photo Credit: Bikas Das/AP
Reacting to her announcement of a fresh round of protests, Abhishek had said: “We had raised the issue of poor people being denied their rightful [MGNREGA] wages from before the [2023] panchayat polls. I had sat in dharna outside the Raj Bhavan. Our leader [Mamata Banerjee] told us to call it off. Later, she also realised that the BJP was not going to give us the money.” Not only was Abhishek conspicuous by his absence, but his photograph was also missing from the stage. All important public events of the Trinamool usually have both his and Mamata’s photographs on the stage.
A lukewarm response
According to the psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty, Abhishek’s absence and the location of the dharna manch (stage) were key factors behind the lukewarm response. “The place of the dharna is important,” Chakraborty said. “Abhishek did it outside the Raj Bhavan, the Chief Minister did it in a place where she has staged protests many times before, so there was nothing special about the protest this time. Moreover, with Mamata Banerjee herself announcing that she will pay the 24 lakh workers who had worked but were not paid, the agitation for the actualisation of the funds began to peter off. The issue of the CAG report also made the party defensive, and the absence of Abhishek kept the agitation from being a strong one.”
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While the Centre may be justified in being wary of disbursing funds in the face of the allegations of misappropriation, many observers said its reaction may be a little too extreme and too expediently focussed on a State governed by an opposition leader. In 2013, for instance, a media report pointed to how MGNREGA funds were diverted from wages to construction work in almost every district of Madhya Pradesh, but not much was heard about it thereafter. Moreover, the Centre’s stand further exacerbates the plight of the impoverished beneficiaries.
The political commentator and professor of sociology Surajit C. Mukhopadhyay said that while the Centre’s actions “undermine the federal spirit of the nation”, the prolonged stand-off between the Centre and the State is only making the situation worse for the poor. “Ultimately, it is the people who are suffering,” Mukhopadhyay told Frontline. “Neither the Trinamool in the State nor the BJP at the Centre is doing justice to the mandate given by the people. When one withholds funds in the manner the BJP government is doing, it undermines the federal spirit. It exposes the Centre’s belief that it is always right and can behave in such a manner all the time. Federalism is dependent on good relations between the State and the Union government. The Centre has certain duties towards the federating units, and that cannot be simply wished away.”
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