In Bengal if you mess with a Trinamool Congress worker you are a dead man, warns party TMC MP and Bengal film superstar Tapas Paul. “We will torch your house, shoot you dead and send our boys to rape your women if you dare touch our men. Remember I have been a proclaimed toughie,” Paul recently thundered before a pack of Trinamool supporters at Chowmaha village in Nadia district of Krishnagore parliamentary constituency.
The video footage of the speech was on Monday beamed by Bangal television channel 24 Ghanta triggering an uproar in the State political circles. Sensing trouble, the Bengal ruling outfit, however, quickly distanced itself from Paul’s hate speech. “Statements made by Mr Tapas Paul are very insensitive. We do not in any way endorse what he said. Tapas Paul has been asked to provide a written explanation to the party in the next 48 hours (two days) about what is his point of view,” the party’s national spokesperson Derek O’Brien said.
State Education Minister Partha Chattopadhyay asked, “Where did he say thisIJ I will have to check” adding quickly “If he has said this, then the party does not support such remarks. He should have been more cautious in choosing his words.” Other leaders trying to defend Paul said: “There is political motive behind beaming a story after a weak of its taking place.”
“Aami Chandannagorer maal, revolver niye ghuri ... onek rangbaazi korechi ... jodi CPI(M) amader chheleder gaye haath dei tahole nije hatey guli korey chole jabo. Ekdom jata kore debo. Bari ghor jaliye diye, puro gushti sesh korey debo. Chheleder pathiye rape koriye debo. Ekdom rape koriye debo. (I have been a history-sheeter from Chandannagore. I warn the CPM workers that if they mess with our men then, I will shoot them with the gun I always carry with me. I will torch their houses and even send my boys to rape them),” Paul has been caught in camera lecturing a crowd at Choumaha village in Nadia district part of which falls in is his constituency.
Former CPI(M) MP Sujan Chakrabarty demanded a “public apology from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for sending such a “rangbaaz” to Parliament. Paul has joined the league of a host of his party men, including Birbhum district Trinamool president Anubrata Mandal who had during last year’s panchayat elections openly asked his men to torch the rebel party men’s houses and bomb police vehicles if they intervene.
Paul takes his ‘seat’ besides Trinamool MlA Munirul Islam, who had publicly threatened a Congress leader with death. Both Mandal and Islam known for their proximity to the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, often haring dais with her, are facing murder charges but are yet to be arrested. Paul has acted opposite a great many actresses, including Debashree Roy, Moon Moon Sen, and even Madhuri Dixit.
Paul’s public speech also reminds one of similar exploits of his notoriously famed party colleague Arabul Islam --- who had manhandled a woman professor of a college. Retired professor, senior party MP and former Union Minister Saugato Roy had to apologise before the Election Commission for egging on his party men to pay the Marxist goons back in their own coins at an election speech.
State Food Minister Jyotipriya Mullick had repeatedly asked his party men in public to “do to the CPI(M) cadres what you do to a snake” adding “don’t marry your children in a CPI(M) family”.
Reacting sharply to Paul’s speech noted Bangla actor Kaushik Sen said: “He has proved that he is fit to sit alongside Anubrata Mandal and Arabul Islam” while stage artist Chandan Sen wondered “if the workers get too much charged up and convert his words into action then who will be held responsible.”
The police top brass refused to react to “hypothetical questions” as to whether the speech called for suo motu action from the police to slap cognizable charges. For the records Bengal had in the past three years seen an unprecedented rise in rape and political murders.
While CPI(M) has claimed that they have lost 169 comrades to Trinamool attacks in the past three years, the BJP has also been facing the brunt of Trinamool attacks with their workers being targeted every other day. Very recently a BJP worker was murdered at Birhum while 23 party men were fired at at Sandeshkhali in the North 24 Parganas. In both the cases the BJP sent a central delegation on a fact-finding mission to Bengal.