Governor meets AITC delegation on MGNREGA payments issue, assures action
Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose today met with an All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) delegation led by party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at his official residence, Raj Bhavan in Kolkata. He assured the delegation that he would travel to Delhi to take up with the Union government the issue of unpaid wages to more than 21 lakh individuals in Bengal under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Abhishek Banerjee later told a public meeting that the governor told him that he would travel to Delhi within 4 hours.
During the 20-minute-long meeting, the AITC delegation presented Ananda Bose a two-page letter containing demands.
“We look forward to you as the governor of the state to safeguard the interests of both the state and its people,” the letter signed by Abhishek Banerjee said.
The meeting follows a five-day-long 24×7 sit-in protest by AITC leaders led by Abhishek Banerjee outside Raj Bhavan, calling for the settlement of Bengal’s dues under the MGNREGA scheme.
The state government had taken up the matter of unpaid dues with the Union government at various levels over the last many months, including by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself, but to no avail.
The party leaders, taking along hundreds of deprived workers, had protested over this issue recently in New Delhi, during which time the leaders were assaulted by the police and detained by Delhi Police. The sit-in protest was a follow up to that.
