Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee bitterly criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again on Sunday for maintaining silence on the molestation charge against Governor C.V. Ananda Bose despite his stay at Raj Bhavan during the Lok Sabha election campaign.
According to the Trinamul Congress supremo, she had expected the PM to ask Bose to resign from his constitutional post but he did not.
Taking a dig at Modi, Banerjee, speaking at a campaign rally at Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas after the PM, said, "You should be ashamed for playing with the dignity of women of Sandeshkhali by paying them to file fake rape complaints. I will not listen to any lectures from such people who don't respect women.”
She claimed, “The PM comes to Bengal and stays in Raj Bhavan while no woman is willing to visit Raj Bhavan after shameful deeds of the his representative, Laat Saheb (A Bengali dialect to identify the British officers as bigshots), came to light. Women are scared of visiting Raj Bhavan. This has landed me in trouble because I can't talk to him also in person.”
The CM added, “If needed, I will then have to speak to him (the Governor) on the road. You should have asked him to resign from his post but you didn't utter a single word and much to my surprise you are still peddling fake statements on Sandeshkhali. A Sandesh (news) is waiting for you. It is about the country which is saying Modi is losing and is about bidding adieu."
Immediately after her attack on the PM, Sandeshkhali witnessed fresh unrest as the villagers, mostly women allegedly backed by the BJP, heckled local TMC MLA Sukumar Mahato and thrashed two of his aides Dilip Mullick and Tatan Gayen. The incident took place near the Sandeshkhali police station.
The three were talking among themselves at a house. Suddenly a group of women, armed with sticks and rods, stormed the house and dragged them out. They alleged that Mullick and Gayen were circulating fake videos from their cellphones to defame them at the behest of the TMC MLA.
The mob then snatched the cellphones of Mullick and Gayen and beat them up. They also shoved Mahato who appeared to be helpless in face of the sudden outburst. Meanwhile, the TMC has lodged a complaint against National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Rekha Sharma and some BJP leaders with the Election Commission.
The TMC accused them of “commission of serious offences of forgery, cheating, fraud, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy upon innocent women of Sandeshkhali and the entire electorate in general” and demanded police to initiate criminal proceedings against them.
