Mamata defaming TMC leaders to save chair: BJP leader

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National General Secretary, on Saturday said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was accusing her party leaders of being involved in corruption to keep her own image clean.

The BJP in-charge of West Bengal said Banerjee allowed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers to take cut-money in the name of the party after coming to power in 2011 and had now raised the issue deliberately to protect her chair.

"Banerjee permitted party workers and anti-social elements to take cut-money. Now she has raised the issue to project that she herself is clean but others (in her party) are corrupt," Vijayvargiya said at Tarapith in the Birbhum district and added it was a matter of shame for a political leader.

Shortly after the 2019 general elections, Banerjee had raised the issue that some party workers were taking cut-money (commission) from people to provide them the benefits of the state's welfare schemes. She also asked them to return that the money.

Following her statement, hundreds of cut-money protests erupted across the state in which several TMC leaders were attacked, gheraoed and even beaten up.

The BJP also led a number of cut-money protests in Kolkata and several districts, and demanded that Banerjee should ask senior TMC leaders to return the share of the cut-money collected at the grass-root level.

During her July 21 Martyrs' Day rally, the TMC supremo accused the BJP of misguiding people over the issue and urged party activists to hold 'Black Money' protest across the state against the BJP leaders. IANS