Bengal's agrarian economy collapsing under TMC's mismanagement, alleges BJP

KOLKATA: (Nov 18) West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Tuesday mounted a sweeping attack on the TMC government, alleging that the state's agrarian backbone was "crumbling under corruption, exploitation and political capture", and accusing the ruling party of "systematically reversing" its once formidable rural economy.

Addressing a press conference at the party's Salt Lake office, Bhattacharya said that Bardhaman, once hailed as the "rice bowl of India", had slipped to third place in national paddy production behind Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, a decline he pinned on "TMC's chronic mismanagement".

Citing official data, he claimed that West Bengal alone accounted for 3,177 of the 6,076 duplicate fertiliser cases registered across India. "This is the TMC's real 'Egiye Bangla' (Bengal ahead) model," he said.