KOLKATA: A Bengal government circular asking district magistrates to suspend gram sansad (village parliament) meetings in panchayats has raised eyebrows in political circles in the wake of the growing clamour for refund of ‘cut money’ across districts.The June 26 circular cites the onset of monsoon as the reason for putting gram sansad meetings on hold till further notice. However, the ground situation turned out to be entirely different in East Burdwan’s Mangalkote on Friday. Hundreds of men from Bonkapashi village forced the village upapradhan, anchal sabhapati and a gram panchayat member to sit for talks where they admitted to taking Rs 2.12 lakh from 42 villagers for giving benefits under central assistance schemes.The accused upaprdhan, Biswajit De, anchal sabhapati Raghab Ghosh and gram panchayat member Mrinal Kanti Pal admitted they used the money for building a TMC office. TMC block president Apurba Chowdhury said the party had expelled them before the Lok Sabha polls. “BJP is trying to project them as local Trinamool leaders to malign the party’s image,” he added.In East Burdwan, residents accused the gram pradhan of taking cut money for allocating work under the MNREGS programme. A TMC leader used to siphon off the money sent to beneficiaries. In Bankura, villagers mobbed the house of zilla parishad member Bani Hazra asking for return of cut money, though Hazra has refuted the charge. A MRNEGS supervisor in Burdwan’s Kalna village attempted to kill himself after coming under pressure from villagers.On Saturday, the demand for refund of cut money moved closer to Kolkata. Some residents of the Jangra-Hatiara gram panchayat in New Town gheraoed former Trinamool panchayat member Swapan Sutradhar, asking for refund of Rs 5.5 lakh he allegedly took from one Bapi Roy. Sutradhar has denied the charge.