Trinamul heir-apparent Abhishek Banerjee and party defector Suvendu Adhikari indulged in slanging matches on Sunday without naming each other.
Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek, at a rally in Diamond Harbour, indicated that Adhikari, who defected to the BJP recently, was an “asymptomatic Covid-19 patient” who tried to sabotage Trinamul from within. Adhikari in Danton deplored his former party’s alleged south Calcutta centrism.
“Just like the novel coronavirus is the hidden enemy, he (Adhikari) too lay hidden in Trinamul for so many years, sabotaging it from within,” Abhishek said, referring to the former minister’s admission that he had been in touch with Amit Shah since 2014.
“If he is ashamed of having been associated with the Trinamul for 21 years (Adhikari has been saying since his desertion), then why is he still living in the same household as his father and brother?” asked Abhishek, referring to Adhikari’s father Sisir, who remains Trinamul’s Contai MP, the East Midnapore party chief and a party vice-president; brother Dibyendu who is Trinamul’s Tamluk MP; and brother Soumyendu who was until recently Trinamul’s Contai civic chairman.
“The man who can’t ensure the lotus (the BJP symbol) blooms in his own home is going about thumping his chest and claiming he will make the lotus bloom across Bengal,” mocked Abhishek. “If they have the courage, let them set up their own parties like Mamata Banerjee did. Let us see where they stand then…. He has sold his spine to the BJP.”
Suvendu Adhikari File picture
Lashing out at Adhikari’s repeated allegations of extortion, Abhishek said it was not his name that cropped up in the list of those accused in alleged scams.
“I am not involved in either the Narada sting operation or the Saradha scam (indicating Adhikari). Your political somersault was to save yourself from central agencies,” thundered Abhishek.
“If any of you can prove that I have ever been involved in any activity related to extortion, I am willing to be hanged,” he added.
At a Danton rally, Adhikari took the dais hours later to fire a counter-offensive.
“Someone (Abhishek) who cropped up in the party after it came to power in 2011 has said in Diamond Harbour that I have been in touch with the BJP since 2014. In parliamentary culture, people from various parties interact freely. The culture of not interacting with anybody else was the CPM’s. This attack comes from a party (Trinamul) that ran the state wearing the slippers left behind by the CPM,” he said.
The East Midnapore stalwart tried playing the victim card and accusing Trinamul of favoring people from Calcutta over those from the districts.
“This is a fight to the finish, between the districts and the hegemony of Calcutta, which they have tried to establish. This fight is the fight for the villages, for districts,” said Adhikari, referring to the south Calcutta centrism that Trinamul has been known for. “Have the rest of us come floating in the floodwaters?”
Adhikari again stressed the “need” for handing Bengal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and rooted for a single party rule in both the Centre and the state for the sake of development.
