18 November, Kolkata: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is slated to join a massive BJP rally in Kolkata on November 29 to protest the West Bengal government’s alleged flaws in administering the centrally sponsored MGNREGA 100-day work program.
The state BJP leadership intends to demonstrate a gathering of rural people who have been denied employment under the 100-day work initiative due to claimed anomalies in the issuing of job cards at the November 29 rally.
In response to the potential of Shah attending the rally, state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said on Saturday that the West Bengal party leadership wanted the Union Home Minister’s participation to make the occasion historic.
“So we’re looking forward to his attendance at the event.” If everything goes as planned and unless the Union Home Minister is hampered by a last-minute emergency,” Majumdar remarked.
Meanwhile, a BJP committee leader said that Union Minister of State for Rural Development Giriraj Singh and State Minister Niranjan Jyoti would come and address the event.
According to West Bengal Assembly Leader Suvendu Adhikari, thousands of people have been denied 100-day jobs under the MGNREGA scheme due to massive irregularities in project implementation by the state administration, with crores of fake job cards being distributed to people who are ineligible for jobs under the initiative.
The intended march is seen as a response to the Trinamool Congress’s protest last month in Delhi over the Centre’s unwillingness to distribute funding under several programs, particularly the MGNREGA.
