Congress alleges corruption in preparation of BPL list

Kolkata, July 10 (UNI) The Congress today demanded resignation of state Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Suryakanta Mishra on charge of ''largescale irregularities in preparation of district level BPL lists''.

Raising the issue in the house during Zero hour today, party's chief whip Manas Bhunia, describing his personal experience in this regard as 'shocking', said, that holding an MBBS degree, found his name appearing in the list of people living Below Poverty Line (BPL) under Sabang Block of East Midnapore district, describing him as a person ''who studied only upto fifth standard and had no regular income''.

''While another person in a neighbouring village under my constituency (Sabang), who was, in fact, a daily labourer, was described as a wealthy farmer and was given much higher point (58) in BPL category compared to mine (22)'', Dr Bhunia claimed and cited a number of several other such examples of ''false and wrong data base'' in the district level BPL list prepared by the state government.

''Under the circumstances state Panchayat and Rural Development minister Suryakanta Mishra, who also holds the portfolios of health and family welfare, should step down immediately owning moral responsibility for such deliberate but crucial mistakes'', he said, claiming that thousands of such mistakes were deliberately being committed by the state government officials in every district in order to hide facts and project inflated figures to receive more central funds for them.

Dr Bhunia also threatened to launch statewide agitation by the Congress if immediate corrective measures were not taken by the government with proper monitoring mechanism to root out corruption in preparing a new and comprehensive BPL list in the state.

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