KOLKATA: Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take action against an IAS officer of West Bengal for allegedly flouting service rules by renaming three central projects in an official order.
Sharing his letter to the PM on Twitter, the BJP leader claimed that Uttar Dinajpur District Magistrate & Collector Arvind Kumar Mina, a central cadre officer, has renamed the central schemes to make them look like those of the state government and tried to "steal undue credit".
Adhikari also posted a copy of that April 20 order on his Twitter handle after digitally marking the "renamed" schemes.
The ruling Trinamool Congress claimed that Adhikari's post exposes his ignorance about governance. "This order exposes political leaning & misplaced prejudice to promote the agenda of the ruling party of WB, i.e.to rebrand central government schemes as their own and try to steal undue credit," the Nandigram MLA tweeted.
He said that the IAS officer had referred to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana as Bangla Awas Yojana, Swachh Bharat Mission as Mission Nirmal Bangla and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana as Bangla Gram Sadak Yojana.
In these projects, the cost is shared between the Centre and state governments in the ratio of 60:40 in most states. "I believe that you would look into the matter and if you feel my concern is genuine, then you would ask competent authorities to take proper action," the letter read. The district magistrate could not be contacted.
TMC national spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told PTI: "Such comments by him (Adhikari) reveal his ignorance (about governance). There is little point in rebutting Suvendu Adhikari's arguments and giving him undue importance."