People were forced to work in illegal firecracker unit as Centre stopped MGNREGA funds: TMC

The Trinamool Congress on Thursday claimed that many people were forced to work in an illegal firecracker unit in Egra, where a blast killed nine people, as the Centre has stopped giving funds to West Bengal under the MGNREGA scheme, rendering a large section of people in rural areas in the state jobless.

The West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Thursday arrested the prime accused and two others from Odisha in connection with its probe into the blast at the illegal firecracker factory in Purba Medinipur district, where nine people were killed in the explosion earlier this week.
A senior officer said that Bhanu Bagh, the main accused in the case, owns the illegal firecracker unit.

"So many people were forced to work in that illegal firecracker factory as they were out of jobs after the Centre stopped the MGNREGA funds. Poor people are being deprived of work under the scheme due to step-motherly treatment of the state by the Centre," TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

Senior TMC leader and minister Shashi Panja said lakhs of poor people across the state have been affected due to non-payment of dues by the Centre.

"The West Bengal BJP and its MPs and MLAs are also part of this conspiracy to withhold funds. This deprivation had forced people to work in that illegal factory to earn a living. The Centre must immediately release the funds," she said.

The TMC leadership said, out of vendetta, the Centre has stopped giving West Bengal its due funds.

"It (BJP) is trying to punish the state's people for the party's defeat in the 2021 assembly polls. It is yet to accept the defeat," Ghosh said.
The TMC's allegations drew sharp reactions from the BJP, which dubbed the charges as baseless.

"The BJP has no role in stopping funds. The illegal firecracker unit was a garb under which a crude bomb-making factory was operating. Under the TMC regime, only bomb-making factories and syndicate raj have flourished," BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.