Kolkata, April 21 (IANS) Ridiculing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's claim that West Bengal's Left Front government has failed to utilise huge amounts of central grants, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday said it was the state's right to get the funds.

"The way it is being said as if the money is being given out of charity and generosity," CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat told mediapersons here.

Karat, whose party spearheads the Left Front government, said: "It is the constitutional right of West Bengal to get funds from the central government."

Gandhi, during her two rounds of campaigning in the state, launched a scathing attack on the Left Front, saying the state had received thousands of crores from the centre for development projects.

But "it is a matter of surprise and regret that the effect of this money and funds are seen nowhere in the state," she said.

Karat said the state had for long been demanding that 50 percent of the money collected from the states by the centre as tax be given back to the state. "But the states get only 32 percent," he said.