Facing public protests for taking ‘cut money’, a local leader of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress in Birbhum district on Tuesday returned around Rs 2.25 lakh to over 100 beneficiaries of government social welfare schemes from whom he had taken it as commission and apologised to them. Trilochan Mukhopadhyay, a Trinamool booth president on the outskirts of Birbhum district headquarter town Suri, returned the amount to 141 people from whom he had taken for providing them jobs under the scheme.
"I have apologised to the people and returned the money. I promise I won’t do it again," Mukhopadhyay said. The development came two days after local people staged a demonstration outside his house demanding immediate return of the "cut money" he has taken in the past few years. A meeting of gram panchayat was called and he was forced to return the money. Each of the 141 people got around Rs 1,600.
Local people claimed that a total of around Rs 2.41 lakh was deposited in the accounts of the beneficiaries as wages for the construction of a drain and Mukhopadhyay collected nearly all of it by force. Trinamool block president Nurul Islam said it is a good initiative to pay those beneficiaries who had worked only for three-four days. "A section of media is trying to project it wrongly," he said.
BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said this is just a beginning. "In the coming days, senior TMC ministers and leaders will also return cut money taken from the people," he said. Protests have erupted across Bengal for the past one week over demanding return of the "cut money" taken by elected representatives of the ruling party from beneficiaries of government schemes.
On Tuesday, sit-in demonstrations were held in North 24 Parganas and Birbhum districts over the same demand. Trinamool leaders at municipal and panchayat levels have been facing public resentment over “cut money” in other districts such as Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Burdwan, Malda, Purulia, Nadia, West Midnapore, Bankura and Kolkata.
The protests rocked the state following Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's recent warning to the party leaders that those involved in taking cut money from government schemes and other corrupt practices would be jailed. At a meeting with Trinamool councillors, Mamata had said, "I do not want to keep thieves in my party. If I take action they will join some other party. Some leaders are claiming 25 per cent commission for providing housing grants to the poor. This should stop immediately. Return the money if any of you have taken it."
In the wake of the protests, the Trinamool leadership on Sunday accused the media of misreporting the interactions between Mamata and the party leaders and said "99.99 per cent" of party functionaries were hard-working and committed to work for the benefit of the people.
