"This is a baseless allegation. Only in two or three districts where boards in elected local bodies (controlled by the Left Front) have lost majority following the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, financial powers have been transferred to the district magistrates," Mukherjee said.
This was done to pass the budget of the local bodies and to ensure that execution of development projects in the areas did not suffer, Mukherjee, a senior Trinamool Congress leader, said.
Mukherjee said that the Trinamool Congress did not dissolve a single body, while the erstwhile Left Front government dissolved 137 of them.
He was reacting to the allegation by a CPI-M delegation of zila parishad representatives, led by party MP Sitaram Yechury and former MP Amitabha Nandi who took up the issue with Panchayati Raj Minister Kishore Chandra Deo and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh at separate meetings in Delhi during the day.