Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday attacked her critics for “calling me a bandit queen and leader of thieves” while armed Trinamool Congressmen overran streets of Kolkata leaving many Opposition workers injured, hospitalised and the voters terrorised.
On the other hand, former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee called on people to “descend on the streets” and “resist” the “reign of terror” unleashed by the ruling outfit. This even as top police officials apprehended large-scale violence on April 18 Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections.
Banerjee directly attacked “those at the Centre” for “trying to grab power from the back door with the help of TV shows and not by working among the people or knowing the culture and social fabric of Bengal.”
She thundered: “Everyday some Opposition partymen from outside are abusing me in TV programmes sometimes calling me the bandit queen or leader of thieves. This may provoke our partymen. But they are showing great restraint.”
On the contrary, however, alleged Trinamool men brought back memories of the Black ’70s dominating streets with open arms in many places apparently with a view to terrorise voters and rival partymen even as the police looked the other way, sources said.
Armed-to-the-teeth, Trinamool cadres attacked rival partymen sending many to hospitals. Violent clashes were caught on CCTV cameras from Kashipore in North Kolkata to Patuli in the South.
While four men received bullet and gun injuries at Kashipore on Wednesday, at Baliaghata-Narkeldanga a senior Congress leader Prakash Upadhyaya was brutally beaten up by Trinamool men. Armed Trinamool assailants attacked left workers at Bhawanipore and their BJP counterparts at Kasba damaging motorbikes, cycles and ransacking shops. “They resorted to night-long bombing of areas so that voters do not go out to vote on April 18,” sources alleged.
At Bagha Jatin, Ramgarh and Patuli in South Kolkata CPI(M) workers and candidates were attacked with lethal weapons. “Many of our men are currently in hospitals,” Sujan Chakrabarty a former party MP said adding not a single Trinamool goon was arrested.
In a grim example of medieval brutality “some of our men were forced to put their hands on fire while others’ hands were put on blocks and broken with hammers … their fault was they were distributing voters’ slips” said Kanti Ganguli a former Bengal Minister. “Trinamool knows that their popularity is falling fast so they are trying to win the polls by violence. But this time we will not allow an encore of 2014 general polls. Our men will resist come what may,” he maintained.
Opposition workers blocked roads at different places from Wednesday night asking police intervention. Thursday’s developments came within 48 hours of actor-turned-BJP-leader Rupa Ganguli was roughed up and her car was shattered barely a km away from the Chief Minister’s house when she went there to attend a poll meeting. Undaunted Ganguli took to campaigning more vigorously on Thursday riding into interior areas leading the campaign from the front.
What looked like a pep-talk to his party cadres, former Chief Minister Bhattacharjee said “a cornered Trinamool is spreading reign of terror so that we lose our confidence of facing them. But our experience says that only the left can stand up to the current situation enabling every voter to cast his vote.”
Only the voters would have the last word and not the goons and “if need be we will resist Trinamool violence descending on the street” he said.