Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday lambasted the BJP over the arrests of fact-checker and journalist Mohammad Zubair and activist Teesta Setalvad, demanding to know, without naming anyone, why now-axed BJP spokespersons like Nupur Sharma still roamed free.
The chief minister launched her scathing offensive over the saffron camp’s alleged double standard at a public event in Asansol.
“Why was Zubair arrested, what had he done? Why did you arrest Teesta, what had she done? The whole world is condemning this today,” said Mamata in the afternoon, on a day a Delhi court extended by four days the custodial interrogation of AltNews co-founder Zubair, who has been charged with hurting religious sentiments with reference to a 2018 tweet.
“Hum aah bhi kartey hain toh ho jaatey hain badnaam / Woh qatl bhi kartey hain toh charcha nahi hota (We suffer slander for a mere sigh / They get away with murder, no mention of it nigh),” said the Trinamul Congress chief, citing a famous Urdu couplet by satirist Akbar Allahabadi. “This is how it has been going on, nowadays.”
“If your leaders speak lies, say nasty things about a religion, thereby demeaning it, then you do not arrest them. You sit around quietly,” she added, underscoring the irony in the inertia of same Delhi police which reports to the Union home ministry headed by Amit Shah in case of now-axed BJP spokespersons Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal, for their derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed earlier this month.
The remarks triggered protests across the country, and earned India widespread condemnation from over a dozen West Asian nations.
At least two police stations in Calcutta have summoned Sharma since.
“I am not even going to name them (Sharma and Jindal). I don’t like taking their names, those dirty people… the ones who abused everybody, abused the gods. Those people were not arrested. You feed them kheer (a traditional sweet pudding) instead. You give them security,” said Mamata.
“Our government has summoned that person. We will not let them escape. We will act against them…. I am in favour of good work, good things. I am against the bad,” she added.
The chief minister then attacked the BJP over its alleged attempts to fell the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government in Maharashtra.
“The BJP is worthless, jobless. They are spending countless crores to break the Maharashtra government…. Buying MLAs, taking them away, destroying the people’s mandate in Maharashtra, is that what democracy is? Does the mainstream media question that action?” she asked, persisting with her firm support for Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra chief minister whose government the BJP is allegedly trying to destabilise by backing factionalism in his party.
“When they spend thousands of crores to build mansions anew, are enough questions asked? Are enough questions asked when Rs 1,100 crore is spent on the BJP’s party office? When the Zubairs and the Teestas are arrested, single-line condemnations, perhaps. When journalists are stripped and tortured in Madhya Pradesh, are enough protest events taken out?” Mamata asked the mainstream media in India.
She went spoke om the contentious Agnipath scheme, again. “Recently, I received a communication from a colonel…. Because when the Union home ministry realised what a major blunder Agnipath was, it pushed the armed forces — which we respect — forward to take the hit. In that letter, our state government was requested to give state government jobs to the Agniveers after four years,” said Mamata.
She added that all state governments received such communication. “The BJP-led Centre’s dustbin, we have to clean in the states’ washing machines? We will not clean up their mess.”
She has been seeking answers from the BJP-led Centre over the controversial scheme, under which soldiers would be demobbed after four years, without pension, alleging that it was essentially a scheme for the BJP to bring up a base of armed cadre for itself, before the 2024 general election.
“I reiterate, that the retirement age for the scheme must be raised to 60 years. Nothing at all comes from just the four years,” said Mamata on Tuesday.
