MOHD SELIM NAILS ALLEGATION ON MPLAD FUND UTILISATION

From B Prasant/INN

Kolkata, April 25: As we have said recently, the Trinamul Congress is really, getting desperate. It despairs of political survival as the Lok Sabha elections draw inexorably closer in Bengal. Otherwise, how does one explain the hoarding that says ‘I am the late Ajit Panja, MP, from Kolkata, speaking from heaven: please vote for the AITC candidate because Mohd Selim has not utilised his MP LAD funds and the funds have gone back to Delhi.’



That is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the Kolkata North segment, posters without carrying the by-line of any political party keeps saying much the same thing with, as in cheap musical scores, carrying the distortions, and using more and more unparliamentary language. Communal angles are utilised too mentioning how Muslims have benefited in Hindu dominated areas and the other way round, treading thus on dangerous grounds.



As Mohd Selim himself put it today 25 April at a press briefing at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan, arbitrary figures are quoted by the Trinamulis while accusing Selim of non-utilisation of MP LAD funds. Sometimes it is Rs 8.58 crore, then again, elsewhere on another hoarding it is Rs 7.79 crore as funds not used.



During his tenure as an MP, Selim has recommended 423 pieces of developmental work and the cost is Rs 10.71 crore. 35% of the schemes relate to the development of educational institutions, especially girls’ schools and hostels. Another 28% is concerned with development of slums and uplift of the poorest of the poor.



The Trinamulis should know that under the guidelines for MP LAD funds it is clearly written that such funds are neither lapsable nor returnable with the previous MP’s unused amount devolving on the new MP. Would the Trinamulis care to listen or even try to appreciate the words of central government guidelines? No, they would not for, they have no time left on their hands after cooking up all kinds of savage mish-mash of defamation and calumnious propaganda, even as the gloom-and-doom of the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal forecloses on their leader and her ranks.

Item 2


LOCAL PEOPLE PUSH AWAY THE
‘MAOISTS’ BLOCK OF KOLKATA STREET



Chhatradhar Mahato the self-proclaimed publicist of the ‘Maoist’-backed ‘resistance committee’ of Lalgarh rallied the Trinamuli goons of the Tiljala-Topsia area of Kolkata during the afternoon of 24 April, adorned a dozen of them with bows and arrows, had them put on headbands, and then – all 300 - odd of them blocked the downturn of the busy arterial link of the EM Bypass Park Circus connector, the only quick link between Salt Lake-Rajarhat-New Town and Kolkata proper.



The block would not last. Once the corporate media enjoyed their fill of still and videography, and that was over in fifteen minutes or so, and yet the roads by then had become jammed up with the evening traffic both ways, the blockers themselves started nervous movements as the local people streamed out towards them.



There was no jostle, the police kept the lathis safely tucked away if ready fisted, and it was the surge of the local populace that saw the weak-kneed, cowering ‘raiders’ climb on to the bevy of buses that had ferried them in from east Kolkata -- and scoot away. Later the leaders spoke, motivatedly lying, of ‘police harassment’ before a willing media.



The block saw the presence of not only the whole host of hardcore ‘Maoist’ leadership of Bengal --who kind of slid back from the glare of attention -- but also of the leadership of the Maoist-run ‘human rights’ organisations, and of students who swear by Maoism in the Jadavpur University and the Presidency College. Also present was the Pradesh Congress leader Idris Ali and a few of his faithful.



‘KILLING IS GOOD’

Elsewhere at Keshpur a visiting team of the ‘Maoist’-sympathised ‘civil society,’ that had made so much of uncouth and defamatory noise against the CPI(M) during the events of Nandigram in particular in 2007-8, had a run in with the villagers. The latter asked the visitors as to what had prevented them from going to Lalgarh where CPI(M) workers were killed by the dozen and planfully.



Shocking is the word that can describe the response that spewed forth. One worthy said that it is the “CPI(M) that had brought it down on their heads by their ‘misdeeds.’” Another one went farther said, “It is good, very good that our men have killed CPI(M) workers, the CPI(M) are akin to simian creatures anyway.”