MGNREGA Wages Row: How BJP's Silence Allowed Trinamool's Narrative To Thrive

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s journey in Bengal has been characterised by a series of misses, the latest being the controversy over non-release of MGNREGA wages for the state.

The Trinamool has, over the past few months, been raising a hue and cry over non-release of funds for paying wages under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). The Trinamool had, in fact, made this a major campaign issue before the panchayat elections in the state a few months ago. 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee have been accusing the Union government of depriving Bengal of its legitimate dues and blocking funds for paying wages under MGNREGA for the past couple of years. 

The Trinamool leadership, very cleverly, crafted a narrative that the BJP government at the Centre has been punishing the people of Bengal for not being able to come to power in the state in 2021. 

This narrative has found many takers in Bengal. The widely-held view in the state is that the Union government harbours an anti-Bengal and anti-Bengali feeling and is, thus, not releasing funds to the state. 

Mamata Banerjee’s charge of the Union government imposing an ‘economic blockade’ of Bengal has found wide resonance in the state. 

The Trinamool went on the offensive against the BJP and the Union government by announcing that it would stage a dharna in New Delhi. The party planned to send trainloads of people who were yet to get their wages (after working on MGNREGA projects in the state) to New Delhi. 

Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee announced that he would take some of the people deprived of their wages to meet Union Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh to demand that the Centre release funds for paying wages of the people who have worked for various MGNREGA projects. 

The BJP, very strangely, maintained radio silence. Save for a few statements by some of its spokespersons countering the Trinamool’s false narrative, the saffron party inexplicably failed to mount a strong challenge to the Trinamool’s falsehoods. 

Only a couple of BJP leaders, most notable being Suvendu Adhikari, countered the Trinamool’s claims and pointed out that the Bengal government was to blame for non-receipt of funds since it (the Bengal government) had failed to take punitive action against officials and panchayat representatives who had indulged in massive corruption to syphon off MGNREGA funds. 

It is an irrefutable fact that a huge number of officials and panchayat functionaries (all belonging to the Trinamool) had created false job cards and syphoned off huge sums of money amounting to hundreds of crores of rupees over several years. 

This massive scam came to light when the Union government insisted on linking (MGNREGA) job cards with Aadhaar cards and bank accounts of beneficiaries. A few lakh job cards turned out to be fake. 

These fake job cards made out in the names of fictitious persons by panchayat functionaries and officials were being used to claim wages under MGNREGA. A few hundred crores of rupees is alleged to have gone into the pockets of Trinamool panchayat functionaries and low-ranking government officials. 

Also, a number of audits revealed that records were falsified and huge sums of money claimed for creating assets (under MGNREGA) that were already in existence or existed only on paper. 

The Union government has, as per rules governing MGNREGA, been insisting that those found guilty of the massive corruption in the job scheme be booked and penalised. 

The BJP should have gone on the offensive against the Trinamool and challenged it. The BJP should have launched a high-decibel campaign and fielded several Union ministers as well as senior party spokespersons to put the Trinamool on the mat. 

All that the BJP had to do was lay out the facts. That would have been enough to counter and demolish the Trinamool’s false charges of deprivation of funds. 

But it did precious little. And that created the widespread impression that the Union government was at fault and there is truth to the Trinamool’s charges that the BJP is depriving Bengal of its dues. 

Not only does the BJP stand accused of inaction, it also took a number of ill-advised steps. For instance, it cancelled a special train booked by the Trinamool leadership to take (MGNREGA) job card holders to New Delhi. 

The BJP should have allowed the thousands of job card holders to congregate in New Delhi and then snatched the initiative from the Trinamool by deploying a couple of senior ministers, including the Union Rural Development Minister, to explain to them why funds are not being released to Bengal. 

Supported by documents which could have been made public, the Union ministers could have explained to the job card holders that it was because of the Bengal government’s refusal to crack down on the corrupt that they were being deprived of their dues. 

Union Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh shied away from meeting a Trinamool delegation led by Abhishek Banerjee while his junior minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti reportedly played a cat and mouse game with the Trinamool delegation that squatted at her office before being forcibly removed by the police. 

That forcible eviction of the Trinamool delegation led by Abhishek Banerjee and comprising several state ministers and MPs in full view of TV cameras provided a huge bonus to the Trinamool which used the incident to play the victim card. 

The Sadhvi’s air-dash to Kolkata the next day — Saturday (7 October) — to address a press meet to counter the Trinamool’s charge that she avoided meeting the party delegation at her office in New Delhi failed to cut much ice. If anything, the Sadhvi’s defence came across as a weak and belated attempt to salvage a lost situation. 

The Trinamool’s narrative gained more traction by the actions of Governor C V Ananda Bose. When Abhishek Banerjee announced his intention to call on the Governor and apprise him of the issue, the Governor made himself unavailable. 

Bose, in what appeared to be another ill-advised move to avoid meeting the Trinamool leaders, flew out of Kolkata. That allowed the Trinamool to boost its charge that the Union government (the Governor being its representative in Bengal) was running scared because it was guilty of not releasing funds to Bengal. 

The BJP seems to be struck by a strange paralysis when it comes to effectively countering and demolishing the false narratives of the Trinamool. 

The non-release of funds for MGNREGA, and for many other centrally-sponsored schemes, because of widespread corruption and the refusal of the Bengal government to take action against the corrupt was an opportunity for the BJP to put the party in power in Bengal on the mat. 

Instead, it has allowed the Trinamool to walk away triumphantly with the victim card.