Kolkata, Jan 3 (IANS): Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Niranjan Jyoti on Wednesday claimed that despite waiting for two-and-half hours at her office at New Delhi in October last year for the Trinamool Congress delegation, it did not turn up.

Jyoti, who was in Kolkata to offer prayers at the Kali Temple at Kalighat on Wednesday, told media persons: "A Trinamool Congress delegation came to my office on that day. I waited at my office from 6 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. First, they said that the delegation of five will meet me. I agreed. Then they said that the delegation will be of 10 members. I even agreed to that. Abhishek Banerjee said that he wanted to meet me. I agreed. Then they demanded that I will have to meet the people and not the delegation."

Jyoti said that she waited for so long since she wanted to engage in a dialogue for the sake of the interest of the common people of West Bengal. "But later I realised that they had no intention to meet. Their only intention was to stage a dharna," she said.

She also rubbished the Trinamool Congress' charge of the Union government "freezing" the flow of Central funds to the the state government under various Centrally-sponsored schemes.

"We have not stopped any payment. Had we done that, the fund flow for all the projects would have been stopped by now," she claimed.

However, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen refuted the claims by the Union minister.

"Let the CCTV footage of her office be made public and the truth will be revealed. In that case, the Union minister should take responsibility for what she said today and apologise,” he said.