Bengal progressing, people won``t have to beg: Mamata

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday said nobody would need to "beg and eat" in the state as her government was carrying forward a slew of development projects across all sectors.

She lashed out at the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) for having "slept through the last 34 years".  The CPI-M had ruled the state uninterruptedly for 34 years before Banerjee`s Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011. Banerjee took a jibe at the CPI-M, Congress and the BJP for being "envious" of her government`s progress. "We will go forward with developmental work and progress... The youth should not fear... No one will have to beg and eat," she said at a public rally at Raidighi in South-24 Parganas district. The chief minister inaugurated 44 projects, including the Rs.3.5 crore worth Raidighi stadium. She announced plans to develop Jharkhali, an island in the Sunderban mangroves, as a tourism hub. "We are soon going to start chopper services to Sunderbans. Jharkhali will be developed as a tourism hub," she said, adding that the first women`s university was coming up in Diamond Harbour. "Women should not get married at an early age... They should study," she said. Banerjee said her government has taken up a lot of projects in the last two-and-a-half years since it came to power whereas the CPI-M had failed to do so. "They were sleeping for the last 34 years and now suddenly they are awake and have started slogan-shouting and conducting meetings. "The CPI-M, Congress and the BJP are all envious as we progress. They are bristling with envy and there is no cure for envy," she said.