He walks into the Trinamool party office in Bolpur with half-a-dozen gun-toting bodyguards and a group of party activists.
After settling down, he picks up the phone and admonishes a party worker — “I think you are working for the other side,” he is heard saying. He then addresses a press conference, answers all the questions, howsoever uncomfortable, and ensures everyone has received cold drinks in the sweltering heat.
He is Anubrata Mondal, the Trinamool district chief of Birbhum, the controversial larger-than-life figure who is a key figure in at least 16 seats in the coming polls (11 in Birbhum, three in Bardhaman and two in Murshidabad).
He says the elections “will be peaceful” — only a day before the Election Commission announced legal action against him for saying that polling agents of the Opposition parties would “vanish” on the day of election. He tells The Hindu that he was misquoted. “I was referring to how during the Left regime its poll misdeeds were made to vanish,” he said.
With his threats to burn the houses of Independents, hurl bombs at police and to cut off wrists of Congressmen, Mr. Mondal has earned much notoriety over the past few years. Despite the controversies, he remains one of party chairperson Mamata Banerjee’s trusted aides.
