Union Budget display of step-motherly attitude of BJP towards poll-bound Bengal: Abhishek

Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday described the Union Budget as a reflection of BJP's ''step-motherly attitude'' towards poll-bound Bengal. Asserting that the saffron party would lose the upcoming Assembly elections, the TMC national general secretary alleged that the BJP was trying to ''teach the people of West Bengal a lesson.'' ''In Bengal, they are losing. So the BJP, with its step-motherly attitude, is trying to teach the people a lesson,'' Banerjee told reporters outside Parliament, according to a statement shared by the TMC media cell. ''But in a democracy, it works the other way around. In the coming polls, the people will give a befitting reply to the BJP,'' the three-time Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour, said. Banerjee alleged that the Centre had deprived West Bengal of its dues under various welfare schemes. ''We have been saying this for the last five years: if this government can show, by releasing a White Paper, that after the BJP's debacle in the 2021 West Bengal polls even one job-card holder from Bengal under MGNREGA received money through Direct Benefit Transfer, I will quit politics,'' he said. The TMC leader, who is the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, challenged the BJP to ''show that in the last four years under the Awas Yojana, in which the Centre provides 60 per cent of the funds, even one person from Bengal received money,'' he said. ''They have not given even 10 paise to Bengal under the Gramin Sadak Yojana after the 2021 poll debacle,'' he said.