The backlash against the “hensheley aagun (fire in the kitchen)” spread to Calcutta on Monday with Mamata Banerjee hitting the streets to raise the pitch of her protest against the fuel price hike by getting women on her side on International Women’s Day.
The Trinamul Congress chief led a 2.5km march from College Square to the Dorina Crossing in central Calcutta along with 35,000 participants, “around 90 per cent” of whom were women, and then launched an attack on the Narendra Modi government, a day after the Prime Minister had come to the city to launch the BJP’s campaign for the 2021 Assembly polls.
Mamata scoffed at the rally Modi held at the Brigade Parade Grounds on Sunday. “Your Brigade event yesterday was a B-grade event…. Money cannot buy everything,” she said to loud cheers from tens of thousands of women.
In her 14-minute address at the end of the event, she unleashed a volley of attacks on Modi, his government and his party over the relentless rise in fuel prices.
“When crude oil prices declined globally, you raised it (fuel prices). Raised it to such an extreme that LPG cylinders in Calcutta cost nearly Rs 900. Every day almost, a Rs 25 hike… a state of anarchy,” she said.
“I tell you, no need for anything else, just the one thing, make LPG free for the masses. We are not interested in your bhashon (speech) of borbad (destruction).”
A cabinet colleague who was present on the dais with her said Mamata felt the price-rise pitch could undermine Modi’s “development agenda” for Bengal, alongside the saffron camp’s attempts to polarise the polls.
An important feature of Monday’s show was Mamata’s attempt to give prominence to not only some of the newest women inductees from civil society but also other women who have been fielded as candidates this time.
“I tell you yet again on this auspicious occasion that our foremost responsibility is protecting the rights of women. Disrespect of women and their power, we will never tolerate,” Mamata said at the brief public meeting in Esplanade at the end of the march.
There, the Bengal chief minister encouraged others such as filmmaker-actor Sudeshna Roy and actors Subhadra Mukherjee, Ronita Das and Manali Dey to speak.
Mamata also gave the mic to several women candidates such as actors Sayantika Banerjee (Bankura), Koushani Mukherjee (Krishanagar North), June Malia (Midnapore), Lovely Moitra (Sonarpur South), Saayoni Ghosh (Asansol South) and singer Aditi Munshi (Rajarhat-Gopalpur).
As the new inductees spoke one after another on the theme that Bengal wanted its daughter Mamata and the BJP had no place in the state, the audience kept applauding the speakers.
“The Tollywood personalities lifted the spirit of the rally.… Actors like June and Koushani injected energy into the audience,” said a Trinamul veteran.
He underlined that the protest gelled with Mamata’s carefully cultivated image of being the voice of women, and that she had also introduced a victim card to this pitch by highlighting how the entire saffron ecosystem – alleged to be misogynistic -- and all agencies at its disposal was up in arms trying to oust the last remaining woman chief minister in the nation.
“It is already well established that she is the loudest voice for the rights of minorities, Dalits and others who are deprived and downtrodden under saffron rule. Now, she is also underscoring her women-friendly side,” he said.
