Kolkata, Mar 20: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today 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
