Rabindra Nath Ghosh the Minister in charge of North Bengal development department, has been recorded threatening and abusing a Union Bank bank official. The bank located in the Cooch Bihar District of West Bengal was paid a visit by the minister on Friday afternoon.
According to reports, the minister was passing by the area when he found a crowd congregated outside the bank. After enquiring about the same, he was told by angry customers that the bank had not been serving them properly from the last 10 days due to an alleged link failure.
He as a result seems to have outright decided to confront the bank officials. A video of this altercation was put out by ANI:
#WATCH Cooch Behar: WB Minister Rabindranath Ghosh shouts at bank employee, says ‘thappad padega’ after people complained of inconvenience. pic.twitter.com/mc6xY3EbDt
— ANI (@ANI) September 15, 2017
He reportedly entered the bank while screaming on top of his voice. He later called senior bank officials and also threatened to have them fired. In the video he seems to have been told that the head office was responsible for rectifying the problem. Then when the official asked him not to shout, the minister became further incensed and threatened to slap him.
Later he is also heard abusing the official. The minister also threatened to throw the official out while reminding him about all the bank customers whose work wasn’t being done due to the technical failure.
Later when asked, the Minister reportedly claimed that he had no regrets over this incident as he had just taken a stand for the hundreds of people who were inconvenienced by the bank. The minister also appears to have raked up a controversy in the past when he had been caught on camera slapping his own party worker.
TMC ministers and its workers have routinely being involved in indulging in similar activities. Here are a few such instances:
- TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee at a protest outside RBI’s Kolkata branch in January had openly degraded PM Modi by calling him a “son of a rat”. He later while speaking to reporters had decided to brazen it out by stating that he was not ashamed of using such words against the Prime Minister.
- A TMC MLA Arjun singh was caught on camera charging towards BJP supporters who were protesting against him. He while doing so was also hurling filthy abuses and it was with some effort that the police managed to restrain him.
- The TMC people have also had problems with banks in the past. A mob led by a TMC panchayat samity leader had stormed into a UCO bank branch in Howrah. They then locked it up after throwing out the staff and customers. The point of protest was reportedly that the bank had not released funds of self-help groups.
- A TMC MLA named Wilson Chapramari had in 2015 threatened to set the District Magistrate of Alipurduar and other senior officials on fire if they didn’t obey his orders with respect to eviction of hawkers from an encroached area.
- Even BJP leader Roopa Ganguly was attacked and abused by alleged TMC workers. This attack took place at a public meeting in Kolkata’s posh Alipore area which was merely 500 metres away from CM Mamata Banerjee’s home.
