KOLKATA: The West Bengal Assembly today passed a motion against Centre's alleged discrimination towards the state government even as opposition Congress, BJP and Left Front slammed the move terming it as a 'hypocrisy' on part of the state government.
The motion was moved under the rule 185 by state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee.
"It is a matter of grave concern that in federal structure the Centre is not allocating funds for various development projects. The Centre is depriving the state of funds that are rights of the state. The attitude of the Centre is thus against the norms of the federal structure and we strongly oppose it," Chatterjee said.
He demanded that the central government sanction the funds that are required for various development projects and take steps to waive the huge debt burden of the state.
State Finance Minister Amit Mitra listed the number of projects, where the state is not receiving funds from the Centre.
Incidentally, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was not present during the discussions on the motion.
Opposition Left Front and Congress spoke against the motion and said the government was taking a dual-faced approach on this discussion.
"The state is pursuing a dual-faced attitude towards it. Firstly, Why is Chief Minister herself absent during the discussion on the motion? The reason is CM doesn't want to speak a word against Modi government and it would make newspaper headlines tomorrow, she wants to be in the good books of Modi and BJP," Mannan told reporters.
"Secondly why didn't they bring such motion in Parliament in Lok Sabha, because they don't have the guts to say anything against the BJP in front of Narendra Modi. That is why we opposed it," Mannan added.
Senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said that the Left opposed the move because the state was pursuing the same attitude towards the opposition-controlled municipalities in the state.
The BJP also opposed the motion by claiming that the premise that Centre is crushing the federal structure, is far from the truth.