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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Give debt relief or Trinamool will step up heat: Mamata-Sumit Sen & Nirmalya Banerjee

Give debt relief or Trinamool will step up heat: Mamata-Sumit Sen & Nirmalya Banerjee

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published Published on Apr 27, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 27, 2012

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday threatened to bring her anger to the streets of New Delhi and launch an agitation in the capital if the Centre didn't give in to her demand for a moratorium on debt repayment.

In a rare and exclusive interview to TOI at the Writers' Buildings in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress chief didn't once utter the words "threat" or "pullout", but her message was clear. She is stepping up the pressure on the Congress-led coalition at the Centre without beating war drums. The Trinamool agitation in Delhi - quite unprecedented for an ally to take on its own government this way - is just the first step in a gradual escalation of pressure tactics.

Mamata is due to meet PM Manmohan Singh next week to seek a three-year debt repayment moratorium for Bengal. "We have been waiting for 11 months for the Centre to consider our demand sympathetically. We will wait some more. But if we don't get justice, all our MPs and MLAs will be forced to launch an agitation in Delhi," she told TOI.

She added that she and her TMC colleagues would take a series of initiatives in Delhi to convince the Centre to clear the moratorium.

Debt restructuring is a genuine demand. We have neither asked for a special package nor are we begging. Bengal's huge debt is a legacy of the past. In March 2011 alone, Bengal's total debt was around Rs 183,000 crore, two months before the change of government. At the end of May that year it had mounted to Rs 2,03,000 crore. The state was paying Rs 22,000 crore a year on payment of interest and the principal when its annual earning is Rs 21,000 crore, she pointed out. Bengal's plea should be treated as an exception," she said.

As a first step, her party MPs have sought an appointment with the PM. This will be followed by her meeting with Singh, tentatively on May 4 - the day the PM meets chief ministers on the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, which Mamata opposes.

"The Fiscal Regulation and Budget Management Act was promulgated in 2005. Why did the Centre allow the financial indiscipline in Bengal even after that," she asked, accusing the Centre of indulging the Left government's "gross financial indiscipline".

"Money was borrowed even from the public fund. For this reason alone the Centre will have to agree to the moratorium." Mamata said her government was worried about paying salaries in the coming month as the Centre had "suddenly and unilaterally" deducted Rs 2,000 crore from its assistance on account of payment of compensatory sales tax. "We had set aside Rs 3,000 crore for payment of salaries, now Rs 2,000 crore is suddenly gone despite the fact that the group of ministers had objected to such arbitrary deductions," she said.

She indicated that while the PM and Sonia Gandhi continue to remain sympathetic to Bengal, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is not that forthcoming. "Both the PM and finance minister had promised help. The truth is the PM is willing to help us. But even after that, I have been humiliated and insulted," she said without specifying who was responsible for it.

She said she had met the PM five times on this issue and the finance minister 15 times. The Bengal finance minister had also met Pranab "at least 15 times". "But we are told that if we are given the moratorium, J Jayalalithaa would raise the same demand. This argument is totally unacceptable and our plea should be heeded under any circumstances," Mamata said.

The CM believes that if her government gets a three-year reprieve, it would help speed up development projects. "No development and planning has taken place in the last 35 years, but we have done a lot in just 11 months," she said, listing out projects like additional rice procurement, creation of additional town police forces and creation of more employment opportunities. "If we don't have the money, how shall we pursue projects like ensuring food for the poor, construction of roads and even pay salaries?" She fears that an essential project like distribution of rice at Rs 2 per kg to poor, "which had helped curb the Maoist menace in Bengal", could suffer.

On the coming presidential poll, Mamata plays her cards close to her chest. "I don't want to say anything now. We have some political allies with whom we will have to talk. There is the Congress. We also have to talk to regional parties, in addition to some key non-political persons," she said. The Congress is dependent on the Trinamool to get its candidate elected to the post of President. The Samajwadi Party has already approached Mamata for a joint strategy, pushing for the non-political Abdul Kalam for a second term.

Mamata made it clear that she still opposed the NCTC in its present form as it "would be an assault on the federal structure.

The Times of India, 27 April, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Give-debt-relief-or-Trinamool-will-step-up-heat-Mamata/articleshow/12889438.cms


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