West Bengal assembly elections: Mamata Banerjee’s ‘venomous snake’ barb at Suvendu Adhikari

GOGHAT/SINGUR: “Doodh-kola diye kal saap pushechhi (I had nurtured a venomous snake),” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a poll rally on Wednesday in her sharpest attack yet on bête noire Suvendu Adhikari without naming him, and terming the Election Commission a “BJP spokesperson”.
Banerjee implied that her Nandigram opponent wouldn’t have a place to flee after the polls. “Where will he go after the elections? Delhi, Bihar, UP, Rajasthan? I will pull him by the ears (and bring him back to face the consequences)”, she told the crowd at Goghat in Hooghly.She also accused Adhikari, again without naming him, of having “an understanding with the CPM” during the 2007 Nandigram firing, saying the CPM leader from whose home shots were fired was now his lieutenant in the BJP.
Lashing out at the EC, Banerjee said the poll body chose “not to act” when her vehicle was being chased and banged on by goons while she had gone to visit the family of an injured party worker in Nandigram’s Balarampur on Tuesday evening, adding she was “tired of complaining to the EC”. “They had stopped and attacked my car in Balarampur. They kept banging on the car,” she said.
“I have kept mum due to the elections. I am tired of complaining to the EC. I have videos of the goons attacking my car. Let the elections be over in Bengal, then I will act,” she said.
Banerjee left Nandigram on Wednesday morning to attend public rallies in Goghat and Singur in Hooghly and Uluberia in Howrah before returning to Nandigram. She is expected to fly out to north Bengal after the Nandigram polls on Thursday.
Banerjee accused the EC of not listening to “anybody apart from the BJP”, adding, “I was hurt once. They attacked my car again. Law and order are the EC’s responsibility now.” She also questioned why no action was being taken to stop “outsider goons” from entering Bengal. “It appears that that Union home minister is running the EC. As if Bengal is now under President’s rule,” she said. She also alleged that the injured party worker’s teenage daughter had been threatened, “Ekhane ekta meyer gaye hath diye dekhak (Let them dare touch a girl here),” she said.
Even as her tone against Adhikari was strident, it was a mellower narrative in Singur against BJP candidate Rabindranath Bhattacharya, popularly known as Mastermoshai. Formerly a TMC MLA from Singur, he defected to the BJP and was rewarded with a ticket. “I respect Mastermoshai even today, and I have nothing to say,” she said, adding she had asked party candidate Becharam Manna to speak to Bhattacharya, when she had herself wanted to contest from Singur in the last elections. “I was told he would not agree,” she said. “I respect him and his age. I had wanted him in an advisory role and let Becharam work for people for the next five years. I would urge him to bless Becharam, for he has worked with him for long. I wish him a long and healthy life.”
At Nandigram, Banerjee again alleged that the EC was working at the BJP’s behest, and that the saffron party was trying to unleash terror. “If you want to fight me, stand up and fight politically,” she urged her opponent. “Nothing will work (for them). They have lost the match. Manush nijer vote bujhe nebe (People will get their voting done). We are asking for no favours from the EC; we only want a free and fair election,” she said.
(With inputs from Krishnendu Bandopadhyay and Suman Mondal in Nandigram)