Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the BJP and a section of media of maligning the Bengal government just 72 hours before bypolls to four Assembly segments by releasing an old video of a mob assault.
On the other hand, the leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, met Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Thursday and submitted to him a report on mob violence and public flogging allegedly perpetrated by Trinamul Congress leaders.
“An old video was circulated for 72 hours only to damage the Trinamul Congress in the bypolls. The incident is of 2021 when Arjun Singh was the MP there. All perpetrators of the crime are in jail now. This is unacceptable,” the chief minister said at Calcutta airport while leaving for Mumbai to attend a wedding programme.
Although Mamata did not specify the video, she was apparently hinting at the recent clip released by the BJP, which shows someone being flogged by Jayanta Singh, a close associate of the TMC, and his men at a club in Ariadaha in Kamarhati municipality. Singh had been arrested earlier this month for allegedly assaulting an elderly woman and his son in Belghoria.
Later on Thursday, the advisor to the chief minister and former chief secretary, Alapan Bandopadhyay, said the state government was worried about the way the three-year-old video was circulated ahead of the bypolls.
“It is an incident that dates back to March 2021. Police have found through technical analysis that the person being assaulted was a man, not a woman. The main accused of the incident, Jayant Singh, was arrested five times by the police on various charges,” said Bandopadhyay.
The ADG (law and order), Manoj Verma, said all those who were seen in the video had been identified and action would be taken against all the guilty.
Verma admitted that the way mob violence incidents were taking place in the state had become a cause of concern for the state. A section of the officials said the incidents had left the top brass of the state government worried since these were tarnishing the image of the state.
Against this backdrop, Suvendu Adhikari briefed Shah on those incidents during a 45-minute discussion with the Union home minister on Thursday. He shared with Shah a pen drive containing the video footage of incidents that took place in Chopra, Cooch Behar and Ariadaha.
“.... Hon’ble Home Minister patiently listened about the ‘Mob Violence’ that has gripped West Bengal and the atrocities committed on women by TMC Leaders Tajimul alias JCB in Chopra & Jayant Singh in Kamarhati-Ariadaha,” Adhikari posted on his X.
Political observers say Adhikari’s meeting with Shah after a month since the Lok Sabha results is significant, given the BJP’s pending decision on the next state president. Current president Sukanta Majumdar will have to step down following his appointment as a junior minister.
BJP, however, officially said that Adhikari met Shah with the sole purpose of appraising him of the deteriorating law and order situation of the state. “There might be some organisational discussion because BJP has already said to go for a bigger movement on the law-and-order situation after the election. There is a possibility that Adhikari might have discussed that with the home minister,” a senior BJP leader said.
INDIA bloc
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to meet NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, and national president of Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav in Mumbai on Friday ahead of the marriage ceremony of a business tycoon’s son. This marks her first interactions with leaders of the INDIA bloc since the Lok Sabha polls.
“I have made an appointment with Uddhav tomorrow for political talks since we haven’t met after the elections. I will also go to Sharad ji’s place and have made an appointment to meet him as well. Akhilesh is also reaching tomorrow and could meet him as well,” said the chief minister.
