Without naming the CPM and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Trinamul Congress chairperson and chief minister Mamata Banerjee said they should maintain political courtesy and use proper language. In the same breath she also said if they (opposition) go on creating trouble people will retaliate as it takes two to make a quarrel.
Miss Banerjee visited Diamond Harbour this afternoon and tomorrow she will share the podium with Abhishek Banerjee, party’s national general secretary at Kakdwip to mark an end of the two-month long Jono Sonjog Yatra. The yatra began from Dinhata in Cooch Behar district on 25 April. Miss Banerjee said in Islampur and Chopra, Trinamul Congress is not involved in any way. “It was the result of a family feud.
They had asked for a nomination but we had refused them. In panchayat elections, it is often found that five members of a family are contesting for different parties in the polls. It is impossible to monitor everything,” she said, adding, “There are 74,000 booths and trouble has taken place only in three areas. But it has been shown in the media in such a way as if the whole of Bengal is burning.
Some media with vested interests are doing this deliberately,” she remarked. She said in Bhangar trouble took place. “There are leaders of the opposition who have delivered speeches to incite communalism. There was retaliation and I have asked the administration to take stern action.” Coming down heavily on the CPM she said, “They have forgotten the past and now they are talking big. They talk of resistance. If they do, people will retaliate. In the 2003 panchayat election, 36 people had died on the day of the poll.
In the 2008 panchayat election more than 30 people died and in 2013, when Meera Pandey was State Election Commissioner, 39 people had died during the panchayat election,” she said, adding, “The CPM is talking the way as if they are the most peace-loving people.” Referring to the BJP she said, “I feel ashamed to take their name. In Uttar Pradesh, murder took place in the courtroom. The president of the Wrestling Federation of India is not arrested. In the Narada case the traitor (meaning Suvendu Adhikari) was named in the FIR by the CBI but has not been arrested,” she remarked.
In Uttar Pradesh and Tripura more than 90 per cent people of the opposition were not allowed to file nominations. “This is what they do but still try to find faults with others.”