Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Sunday accused Union Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee of doing little to curb rising prices of
essential commodities and revive the PDS system.
"I had asked Pranab Mukherjee to take steps to revive
the rationing system, but he said so much responsibility
cannot be taken," Bhattacharjee said at an election rally at
Haltu in his constituency Jadavpur.
He said that rising prices of essential commodities could
have been curbed if items like sugar and onion were sold
through the PDS system throughout the country.
"They have allowed money to be siphoned off by people
like A Raja (former Telecom minister), but has done nothing to
revive the ailing rationing system," he said.
Attacking the Congress, which leads the UPA government at
the Centre with Trinamool Congress as an ally, Bhattacharjee
said, "They have allowed the flight of the country`s money to
foreign banks by some crooks as it is with the money of such
people that the party runs."
Taking on the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee,
the chief minister alleged that the railway minister has been
laying foundation stones only, `but not a single factory of
the Railway has come up in the last two years`.
Bhattacharjee, however, admitted faults on the part of a
section of his partymen and leaders, saying, "People tell me
it is not due to their achievements that the people have voted
for the Trinamool Congress in the last few elections, but out
of anger and disappointment they have voted against us."
"I ask all my partymen not to indulge in any activity
detrimental to the interest of the people,`` he said.
PTI
