The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday distanced itself from an utterly juvenile statement hurled by one of the most pedigreed Islamic clerics of Bengal at State BJP president Dilip Ghosh provoking large-scale condemnation even as senior ruling party leaders said they would not like to comment on “personal issues.”
In a rare display of inane audacity peculiar to countries like Pakistan, Maulana Noor Ur Rehman Barkati-a descendant of the royal priests of the Hyder Ali-Tipu Sultan family-earlier issued a ‘stone-pelting’ fatwa against Ghosh and prescribed his ouster from Bengal for the alleged “misdemeanor” he showed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Irrespective of his real time capabilities Barkati-whose status rose by leaps and bounds post 2011 after TMC Government came to powerand celebrated its victory by bestowing on him a beacon-fitted SUV-had earlier slapped a fatwa against Ghosh saying “he should be pelted with stones and thrown out of Bengal.”
His justifications, “A person who cannot show respect for a Chief Minister has no right to live in Bengal.” Incidentally Ghosh’s show of disrespect meriting pelting of stone was limited to comparing Banerjee to a “semi-senile person wandering the streets against demonetisation.”
Barkati a little-known cleric till a few years ago-requisitioned more for registering marriages and saying prayers for the ill-has been a regular front-row invitee in Banerjee’s political meetings.
“From where does he get so much of audacity to use filthy words against our Chief MinisterIJ” he wondered saying Ghosh did not deserve to stay in Bengal. “I have issued a fatwa against him so that stones are pelted against him and he is thrown out of the State.”
Soon there erupted a tug of war on claim of ‘audacity’ even as Ghosh marveled at Imam’s “audacity” to issue a fatwa “as though he is living in Pakistan or Bangladesh.” He added, “It seems that he wishes to live in Bengal or India has ended and he wants to go to Pakistan which is why he is using such words.”
Ghosh further said that “TMC will pay heed to his fatwa and not BJP. If he thinks that he will issue such fatwas and go scot-free then he is wrong.”
When asked to comment on the issue senior Trinamool leaders tended to run for cover saying either they did not know a word about what transpired or “the party will not speak on personal issues.”
Notwithstanding its bid to avoid the issue FIRs were lodged against Ghosh from two sides. While in the first place a former BJP worker Suman Sahoo filed a police complaint alleging the BJP State president had threatened his life in the second place Trinamool supporters from Mdinapore slapped a case against him for making “derogatory remarks” against the Chief Minister.
The police said they were investigating the case while Ghosh said he was not troubled by such minor issues and that things would be handled as they came. “Cases are being slapped to cow me down but they must remember that they are dealing with the BJP and not other outfits.”