First tranche of ‘cut money’ returns
Kolkata, : Days after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s whip to party
men to return ‘cut money’, a Trinamool Congress booth president has returned
Rs 2.25 lakhs.
Nurul Islam, the party’s Suri Block II chief, yesterday returned the amount he
had taken from labourers engaged in drainage work in Chatra village of Birbhum
district, according to local media reports.
In all 141 men received Rs 1600 each from one Trilochan Mukherjee, who had
been denying them payment for the last eight months. The TMC, however,
denied this involved returning of cut money.
‘Those who work for 3-4 days earn a small amount. We decided to club these
small amounts with earning of those working 20-25 days. The money is debited
to the big account holders. We then withdraw the excess amount and distribute
them among the small beneficiaries. This is not returning cut money,’ Islam was
quoted as saying.
The issue incidentally reverberated both in parliament and the state assembly
yesterday.
State BJP president and MP Dilip Ghosh said in parliament that the CM had
taken cognisance of the cut money “without which nothing moves in Bengal”.
He claimed that the development was a vindication of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s charge of “tolabaji tax” during campaigning for the just concluded Lok
Sabha polls.
In the state legislature the opposition Left and Congress members demanded
creation of a commission to probe cut money cases which was rejected by the
ruling party.
State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee said the opposition was
trying to twist the chief minister’s statement.
The issue, though, has gone beyond the legislature with people across the state
demanding return of cut money.
Singer-songwriter Nachiketa Chakraborty even penned a song deriding the trend.
It went viral in the social media.
UNI.