Facing relentless criticism regarding the Sandeshkhali violence and the allegations of sexual assault on women in the area, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee insisted that the situation at Sandeshkhali was a local issue which the administration has resolved, emphasising the differences from the previous agitations at Singur and Nandigram.
Addressing a public gathering in Coochbehar district, Ms. Banerjee said that the State government has also returned land to those people whose land was taken away at Sandeshkhali.
The unrest at Sandeshkhali, an island in the State’s North 24 Parganas, where local residents have held protests against Trinamool Congress leaders, has embarrassed the State’s ruling dispensation, especially as it has emerged as an election issue before the Lok Sabha poll. The agitation against forcible land acquisition at Singur and Nandigram had catapulted the Trinamool Congress to power in West Bengal in 2011.
Counter allegations
The Trinamool Congress chairperson’s comments came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of Sandeshkhali while campaigning in Coochbehar. “The whole of Bengal, the whole country has seen how the TMC government used all its strength to save the culprits of Sandeshkhali,” Mr. Modi had said.
The West Bengal Chief Minister noted that her government has put leaders of her own party behind bars, including Arabul Islam and Sheikh Shahjahan, the prime accused in the Sandeshkhali violence, who was arrested by the West Bengal police on February 29 and is now in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party awards those who face allegations of illegal activities, such as the BJP’s Cooch Behar candidate and Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nisith Pramanik, she claimed.
Pending cases
“I can arrest our workers. Arabul (Islam), (Sheikh) Shahjahan can be arrested. How is the goon a Central minister?” Ms. Banerjee said, asking how someone with so many pending cases against him could become a Union Minister. “He is involved in smuggling, there are allegations of murder, manufacturing of crude bombs against him. I have all the details of cases,” she said.
Ms. Banerjee added that while her party had discarded Mr. Pramanik, who was previously part of the TMC’s youth wing, the BJP had rewarded him by giving him a Union Minister’s post. “People we are discarding are becoming the BJP’s wealth,” the Chief Minister said.
Voting for the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat will be held in the first phase of polling on April 19. Mr. Pramanik is pitted against the TMC’s Jagadish Chandra Basunia. There are 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal and voting in the State will be held across all seven phases.
