Former Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale on Wednesday alleged that nearly 50 per cent of beneficiaries under West Bengal's newly launched Annapurna scheme had been dropped, calling it the "first scam" of the BJP government in the state.
In a post on X, Gokhale questioned the sharp decline in the number of beneficiaries compared with the erstwhile TMC government's Lakshmi Bhandar scheme.
He claimed that while there were 3.1 crore women voters in the 2026 Assembly elections and around 2.4 crore beneficiaries under the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme, the Annapurna scheme has only around 1.3 crore beneficiaries after scrutiny.
He said around 1.6 crore applications were received for the Annapurna scheme, of which 26 lakh applications were rejected, leaving around 1.3 crore beneficiaries.
"How did we go from 2.4 crore women beneficiaries under TMC to ONLY 1.3 crore under BJP?" Gokhale questioned.
"Almost 50 per cent of women beneficiaries in Bengal DELETED! That's 1.1 crore women," he said.
Gokhale alleged that the reduction in beneficiaries amounted to depriving women of benefits, claiming that the BJP government is "punishing" women who had voted for Mamata Banerjee.
TMC national general secretary Derek O'Brien, quoting Gokhale's post, said his party would continue to raise issues concerning people's lives.
"We will continue to do what our leader, Mamata Banerjee, does best. Raise issues that touch people's lives. That's what defines TMC," he said.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday said the first tranche of funds under the Annapurna Yojana, a direct cash transfer scheme for women, was credited to the accounts of nearly 1.1 crore beneficiaries.
Adhikari said around 1.6 crore applications were received for the scheme, of which 26 lakh were rejected on grounds including deaths, doubts over citizenship and domicile status, deletion from voter rolls and multiple account holdings.
He said the total number of approved beneficiaries whose data had been uploaded on the scheme portal currently stood at around 1.3 crore, adding that those yet to receive the money would get the funds transferred by the end of the day.