The TMC will go ahead with its planned sit-in here against alleged attacks on party leaders and workers, and the drive to evict railway hawkers, despite the police denying permission for it, party chief Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.
She alleged that while the common people and small traders were living in fear, and street vendors were being evicted without a proper rehabilitation plan, the ruling BJP was using “money and power” to engineer defections in her party.
However, the former Prime Minister asserted that the departure of leaders from the party fold for personal interests would help in rebuilding the organisation, and the TMC would emerge stronger from the crisis.
“Why are people afraid? Why are people worried? The entire atmosphere has changed. Kolkata and Bengal have been handed over to blocks,” she claimed.
Attacks on TMC
Banerjee said 12 TMC workers have been killed since the Assembly elections, thousands of party activists have been arrested, while many others were forced to flee their homes.
“The democratic protests have been obstructed,” she said, noting that the police had refused to allow her party to set up a dharna in the heart of Kolkata against issues such as the eviction of street vendors, attacks on party workers and alleged irregularities in the NEET exam.
She announced that the protest would continue regardless of official permission. “If we are not allowed to hold a dharna there, I will sit wherever they stop me. I am ready to be arrested,” Banerjee said.
In an apparent reference to BJP leader and Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who was once a close aide of Banerjee, the TMC chief said she nominated him in the polls because she has known her father and family for a long time.
Banerjee claimed that she received a letter indicating that some leaders would return to the party if her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was removed from the leadership of the organisation.
“I know these people well,” she said. “Those who have no ideology or principles cannot dictate conditions to us.”
The statement came amid political unrest in the TMC after the expulsion of two MLAs over alleged anti-party activities and reports of more leaders reaching out to the BJP.
A meeting with TMC MLAs was canceled on Monday after only 20 of the party’s 80 legislators arrived at Banerjee’s residence for the meeting.
Attack on Abhishek Banerjee
The TMC alleged that the BJP was targeting Abhishek Banerjee over his growing political profile, and claimed that he was recently denied proper medical treatment after being attacked.
On Saturday, Abhishek Banerjee was manhandled in Sonarpur, on the southern outskirts of Kolkata, where an angry mob pelted him with eggs and stones when he went there to visit the family of a TMC worker who was allegedly killed in post-election violence.
Referring to the incident, she claimed that hospitals were under pressure to prevent his admission and described it as an example of “political vendetta”.
The TMC also accused the BJP government of withdrawing security cover for opposition leaders and using police agencies to intimidate elected representatives.
“The police are being used to threaten local paralegals and force local representatives to resign. This is not democracy,” she claimed.
Defections
Targeting dissidents, Banerjee said many of the leaders now leaving the TMC had enjoyed power and positions for years but were changing sides to protect personal interests.
She criticized MLA Ritabrata Banerjee, who was expelled along with Sandipan Saha, from the TMC, and said the party made a mistake by accommodating him after he was expelled by the CPI(M) in 2017.
“I thank the Communist Party of India for expelling him. It was our mistake to give him a ticket after he came and fell at my feet looking for an opportunity. We trusted him and even denied others tickets to accommodate him. Today he betrayed the party and the people who elected him,” Banerjee said.
She added: “We are happy that they are gone. We will rebuild the party. Such people were not our assets at all.”
Banerjee also accused the BJP of trying to use the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls and administrative procedures to intimidate the opposition party’s supporters and alleged that democratic institutions were being misused.
The BJP has not yet responded to these accusations.
