Hours after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned Abhishek Banerjee and his wife for questioning in the coal scam case, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and her nephew lashed out at the ruling BJP.
While speaking on the occasion of Trinamool Chhatra Parishad foundation day on Saturday (August 27), Abhishek Banerjee threatened to fight the BJP till the ‘last drop of blood.’ He warned, “TMC will fight the BJP in each State where they have killed democracy and usurped the rights of people…We will fight till our last blood. If anyone has courage, then, dare try stopping us. BJP thinks we will get cowed down by threats and but this is the land of Bengal. Remember, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Swami Vivekanand, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Benoy Badal Dinesh were all born here.”
With reference to gore and bloodshed, the nephew of Mamata Banerjee remarked, “When we fight here, we have only outcomes. Either we establish our flag (symbol of complete domination) or return back wrapped in the same flag (die as a martyr)…I challenge Amit Shah whether he has the courage to stop the Trinamool Congress. I am telling you that we will take the States (governed by BJP today) from you.” While adding on to his earlier statement, Abhishek Banerjee claimed that they will sweep the elections in Tripura.
Abhishek Banerjee went on to address the youth and urged them to join the Trinamool Congress with the objective to defeat the BJP. “Ai toh lodai sobe shuru…Tripurai toh khela suru hoyeche…Aaro onek rajya khela shuru hobe (The fight has just begun… It has already started in Tripura… It will be repeated in other States as well),” he said. It must be mentioned that ‘Khela Hobe’ was the election slogan of the Trinamool Congress, which was later weaponised to unleash violence against the BJP cadre. Banerjee has now warned to repeat the same in Tripura and other States. He made his intention clear by reiterating that the target was to uproot the BJP from the nation.
Mamata Banerjee puts ‘Vande Mataram’ at par with her ‘Khela Hobe’ slogan
Following his provocative speech, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to the podium. In her speech, she put her genocidal election slogan of ‘Khela Hobe’ on the same pedestal as the nationalist slogans of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Hind’. She inquired, “Why did we give the slogan of ‘Maa Mati Manush’ (mother, land, and people)? Why do we say Joy Bangla (another election slogan)? Or Khela Hobe ? or Vande Mataram? or Jai Hind?” In order to draw a false equivalence between her party’s slogans and that of the nation, she said that it was to encourage the youth to take the country in the right direction.
Post poll violence in West Bengal
Using violence as an instrument to subdue their political opponents has become a distinctive feature of the TMC rule in West Bengal. Ever since the Mamata Banerjee-led retained power in the state, the persecution of dissenters and opposition workers has only intensified. In an overwhelming number of such incidents, the victims have been BJP supporters and workers while the accused were said to be the supporters of the TMC party. More than a dozen BJP workers have lost their lives in the post-poll violence that ensued following the victory of the TMC party in the assembly elections.
The violence unleashed against them forced hundreds of BJP party workers and supporters to flee their villages along with their families. They crossed over to Assam where they have been provided temporary shelter under the supervision of minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. It is not just the BJP but even CPI(M) which has accused the TMC of killing its workers. Reports of attacks on BSF jawans have also emerged in the media. On June 2, 2021, a month after Mamata Banerjee came back to power, the BJP said 37 of its workers were killed in the post-poll violence that convulsed the state.
There were reports that said women in West Bengal were raped, assaulted and, in some cases, even killed, just because they adhered to a different political ideology.Recently, a victim who was raped by the TMC goons in front of her father shared her harrowing ordeal with OpIndia. She narrated how she was attacked and sexually assaulted by her perpetrators associated with the TMC party. In the aftermath of the assembly election results, TMC goons wreaked havoc, attacking and plundering the houses of their opponents. In one such attack, TMC goons lynched BJP worker Avijit Sarkar to death.
