UNION MINISTER CALLS OUT TMC FOR MGNREGA FRACAS

Dismisses TMC charge that she refused to meet the party's team in Delhi for talks on MGNREGA dues.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

In an unexpected development that caught the Trinamool Congress off-guard, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, the Union Minister of State for Rural Development, on Saturday, landed in Kolkata unannounced and called out the party for "spreading lies" about its ongoing agitation to demand pending Central dues for MGNREGA and Awas Yojana for which the Trinamool Congress has mounted a high-decibel campaign in Delhi and Kolkata.

Addressing a press conference at the State BJP office, Jyoti said that the Trinamool Congress leaders led by MP Abhishek Banerjee who had gone to New Delhi earlier this week "deliberately did not want to meet her and merely wanted to create drama and nautanki". She dismissed the Trinamool's allegations that she refused to meet the party's team in New Delhi for talks regarding MGNREGA dues. She said: "I wanted to meet them and waited for nearly two-and-a-half hours for them. But they kept shifting goalposts on the number of members of their delegation."