In a sharp attack against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s criticism of the Centre’s handling of the economy and her “who is the real ‘Pappu’ now” remark, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the TMC leader would find ‘Pappu’ in West Bengal if she looks in her own backyard.

During a debate in the Lok Sabha over the supplementary demand of grants, the Finance Minister said Mahua Moitra should “look in her own backyard, and she will find Pappu in West Bengal.”

Citing “wonderful schemes that could benefit common people”, Sitharaman said, “West Bengal sits over it, doesn’t distribute it… you won’t need to search anywhere else for Pappu.”

She was responding to questions raised by Moitra about industrial output, the manufacturing sector and the number of people leaving India in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Moitra had said the ruling party had coined the term “Pappu”, usually used to attack Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, “to denigrate and signify extreme incompetence. But the statistics tell us who the actual Pappu is.”

Moitra had recited a couplet in her speech: “Sawaal yeh nahin ki bastiyan kisne jalaayi. Sawaal yeh hai ki paagal key haath mein maachis kisne di (The question is not who lit the fire, the question is who handed the matchbox to a crazy person)?”

Sitharaman attacked the TMC MP stating the “maachis” of people’s mandate given to the ruling party in West Bengal led to arson and loot in the state after its victory in the assembly elections.

Citing, the peaceful conclusion to the Gujarat Assembly elections, Sitharaman said there was “arson, looting, rape and burning of houses of our party workers” after TMC won the West Bengal polls in 2021.

“Loktantra mein janata sarkar ke haath mein maachis dethi hain. Isliye, prashan yeh nahi hona chahiye ki haath mein maachis kisne di, asli prashan to yeh hai ki maachis ka upayog kis prakar kiya gaya (In democracy, people give matchsticks in the hands of the government. So the question should not be that who gave the matchsticks but how the matchsticks were used),” Sitharaman said.

In another retort using Moitra’s dig at the supplementary demand for grants, the Union Finance Minister said, “hamare haath main jab maachis thee, humne Ujjawala diya, humne Ujala diya, humne PM Kisan diya, humne Swachh Bharat Abhiyan chalaya (when we got the mandate, we gave free cooking gas, electricity connections, Rs 6,000 annual cash to farmers, and started clean India campaign).

In her reply, Sitharaman also said that funds under rural job guarantee scheme MNREGA could not be released to West Bengal since March 2022 as the state government has not yet replied to complaints of misuse of funds.

As per the MNREGA Act, the central government upon receiving the complaints cannot release funds till necessary explanation is received from the concerned state, she said.

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