Barely couple of months back the Union Home Minister Amit Shah had sent at least four teams of the central officers to investigate into the Mamata government’s failure to meet the challenges of corona virus. He had also written letter to the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee criticising her government for not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach the state. He had described it as perpetration of "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state.

While trying to portray himself as the well-wisher of the poor labourers he had written that Union government was running the 'Shramik Special', to facilitate transport of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, "but we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them."

But unfortunately for Shah all his efforts to discredit Mamata proved to be utter failure. He could not stand to the challenge thrown to him by Mamata and her party. Senior leader Abhishek Banerjee had challenged him either to prove his allegations or apologise.

Once again the Union government has been indulging in same kind of nasty game. This time the Centre has been working on the design to discredit Mamata and her government’s claim of creating 16.62 crore mandays between April and early August. The fact of the matter is West Bengal had “routinely” created more than 22 crore mandays a year over the past few years but no central audit team had ever been sent to the state before.

The move to send central teams was initiated only after the state government furnished figures that it created 1.25 crore mandays in April and 4.47 crore mandays in May amid a nationwide lockdown in the major part of the time. It is worth mentioning that no other state created such a huge number of mandays during that period. At a time when other states were fumbling on the mechanism to be initiated to help the migrant labourers, the Mamata government managed to perform. A senior official explained that as there was no curb on agriculture and its allied sectors, the state government focused on these areas to create rural jobs.

The BJP has become quite assertive for last couple of years, after Dilip Ghosh took over as the state president. While he has been using abusive and filthy language against his political rivals, he has promised to liberate the state from the control of Mamata. But the party sources maintain that it has not been an easy going for him.

Though the state BJP has welcomed the Centre’s move while alleging gross irregularities in the past four months, his machination has given rise to remonstration in the party. The TMC leaders who had crossed over to the BJP are opposed to his type of politics. They claim that Ghosh has unnecessarily been maligning the image of Mamata and trying to give her bad name. In fact at least four district level leaders of south 24 paragana have quit the BJP and rejoined the TMC.

The TMC leaders nurse the view that with the Assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2021 the BJP would make rural job mandays a political issue. A minister in the Bengal government said: “This is a political move to harass the state government.The Centre should release Rs 53,000 crore first, which is due under various schemes, and then they should send teams to find out if we have done any wrong.” It is really a sad affair that Centre has not been clearing all dues so that the state can carry on with its development activities.

The panchayat department was told that the team would visit Bengal between August 10 and 14 and tour multiple districts. The team would focus to scan the books of accounts related to expenditure. The state government has spent Rs 4,865 crore under the scheme during the period which is over 76 per cent of proposed annual expenditure. The BJP was finding it hard to accept state government’s success in creation of jobs in the rural areas during the lockdown when people were in dire need of income opportunities.

Notwithstanding his rhetoric of corruption curtailing development Dilip Ghosh so far has succeeded in sending any tangible complain to his boss Amit Shah. He has simply been trying to create a situation of distrust in the government. His usual refrain has been; “The central team should examine ground realities for themselves. The money never reaches beneficiaries of MGNREGA. The state government juggles with figures. They cannot be trusted. Where is all the money going? What is wrong if the team wants an audit?”

Meanwhile the BJP insiders maintain that the BJP chief Jagat Prakash Nadda is not satisfied with the functioning of the state party. He has been in receipt of multiple complaints against Ghosh and other leaders. He strongly feels that state must have a new young team. The BJP is not in the position to adopt an aggressive stance against Mamata as it does not have a competent leader to take on Mamata.

Meanwhile recent activities of the party’s national executive member Mukul Roy has been causing trepidation at the national level. He had played a crucial role in the BJP’s meteoric performance in the 2019 general elections, but did not attend the three day meeting held to chalk out the electoral strategy for 2021 assembly elections even though he was in Delhi on Thursday. On Friday morning, Roy flew back to Kolkata.

It is worth mentioning that Roy was made head of the party’s election management committee in West Bengal. With the 2018 panchayat poll and 2019 Lok Sabha election, Roy has consolidated his position in the party. He played a crucial role in poaching MLAs, MPs and other leaders from the Trinamool Congress. Nevertheless sources maintain that he has been cut up with the stance of the RSS which holds that the induction of leaders will be conducted only after a screening at the Sangh’s mandal level. He has taken it as an affront to his political stature. However a general perception about Roy that prevails in the BJP is he is restless and is irked by the state leadership. (IPA Service)