Thursday, March 10, 2011

Nepotism - The Trinamool Congress Way

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs. 100 per day. It is considered by many to be one of the major reasons for the re-election of the UPA in the general election of 2009. The scheme has become so successful that many state governments have projected to the people this scheme as their own. So much so that the scheme, which was originally called National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, had to be renamed to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The Trinamool Congress Party and its leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, have an uncanny aptitude in emulating what other political parties have done, especially if the latter has reaped electoral gains from it. Therefore, it is little wonder that the party, after gaining the reins of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, would introduce a scheme very similar to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The motive behind this is definitely not reaching out to the urban poor but to encash on its vote-catching abilities before the crucial Assembly elections.

So the TMC-run Kolkata Municipal Corporation board did not have the patience to wait for the completion of the BPL list. Imitating the central scheme, the civic body introduced the 100-day work scheme for BPL families in December 2010. KMC did not take the trouble of specifying clearly that only those from BPL families can register. Neither did it issue instructions that only unemployed youth could register.

This instance of bad administration and lack of planning has allowed the likes of Rohit Mondol, a TMC supporter, to take wrongful advantage of the scheme. Rohit, a 27 year old from Bansdroni, is a driver by profession with a monthly earning of Rs. 4000. This young man was taken by a TMC leader to the local councilor who got him enrolled under the “right to work” scheme. So, apart from his salary, Rohit earns Rs. 100 per day for the work he does under the scheme. That works out to an income of Rs. 10,000 a year over and above the annual salary of Rs. 48,000 plus a Rs. 4,000 bonus (equal to a month’s pay) he earns as a driver.

Neither is Rohit’s family in poverty nor does it figure in the BPL list. But then the scheme was not formulated to benefit the marginalised, it was introduced to benefit those who support TMC. A very clear case of NEPOTISM. The money, Rs. 25 crore, has been granted by the state government to implement the scheme in all 141 wards.

Mamata Banerjee alleges at every single meeting of hers that the CPI(M) indulges in nepotism. She has, on a number of occasions promised that if she is voted to power she would work for “everyone” without making any distinction between supporters of different political parties. But once again she has proved that whatever she says has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Because she does not believe in practicing what she preaches. She has two set of principles – one that she espouses in her public meetings and one that she privately follows and instructs her sycophants to follow. Incidents like these expose the REAL Mamata Banerjee who is forever advocating the causes of maa mati manush. She is out to use the gullible people of Bengal in pursuing her personal dream.

Ms. Banerjee is keen to portray herself as an able administrator and a person with a vision. The way the KMC has been functioning ever since the change of guard does not speak well about her administrative skills or her vision. (It is well known by all that every single decision taken by KMC has her approval or rather taken by her and then passed on to the Mayor, Sovon Chatterjee.) She speaks about “Administrative Reforms” that she will bring about if made the Chief Minister. Now the question is why doesn’t she bring those reforms in KMC? What has happened to that vision that she talks about when addressing the elites of Bengal? Or, is it plain and simple nepotism, the politics of rewarding those who have shed their sweat for the party?

She is neither an able administrator nor is she above petty party politics. She is only an able rabble rouser. In a very sly way Mamata Banerjee is using the money received from the state government to further her own cause. A lie is being spread in a planned way to fool the people of Bengal.

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