Bengal politics tended to explode at what the senior Trinamool Congress leaders termed an “insignificant” remark made by party greenhorn and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee about the encounter killing of CPI(Maoist) leader Kishenji.
Maoist party’s second-in-command had reportedly died in an encounter with security forces in November 2011 — within six months of Banerjee caming into power.
Soon after junior Banerjee bragged in a public rally at Jangalmahal on Friday as to how the “Mamata Banerjee Government killed Kishenji” the Opposition parties of the State upped the ante against the Chief Minister demanding her clarification on the issue.
Most senior Trinamool leaders dismissed the junior leader’s statement as an attempt to showcase his party’s success in bringing about peace in West Bengal.
But the Opposition on Saturday said that Abhishek’s assertion merited a clarification from the Chief Minister, more so because “he is not only a party MP but also a family member of Mamata Banerjee and must have been privy to many secret developments that had taken place behind the closed doors.”
The Diamond Harbour MP who is also the Trinamool youth wing Yuva’s president had said that “that the Mamata Banerjee’s Government killed Kishenji is ample proof of the fact that people’s verdict is final.”
Another party MP and Chief Minister’s one-time Nandigram spearhead Subhendu Adhikary was present at the dais.
Kishenji’s “killing” had sparked a row soon after his death when the humnan rights groups pointed out that the Maoist leader was first trapped, then killed in cold blood and then his death was passed off as an encounter killing.
“It is good that the mystery has been cleared by Abhishek Banerjee about Kishenjhi’s death” BJP’s Samik Bhattacharya said. CPI(M)’s Ritabrata Banerjee said “it is for the Chief Minister to explain the truth and take further steps as she herself had once demanded judicial inquiry into Maoist leader Azad’s encounter killing.”
The Pradesh Congress leaders also demanded a clarification from the Chief Minister whereas State Education Minister Partho Chatterjee said “he is a junior politician and such statements should be discounted as they were meant to showcase the Government’s achievements in bringing peace.”
Curiously one of the most trusted lieutenants of Kishenji Sumitra Mahato who was with him at the time of his death fled the spot only to surrender a fortnight later at Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata where she had walked up casually before the journalists to have a talk with them.
What also raised eyebrows was a claim by the Government that the woman ultra had received bullet injuries for which she was treated in a private hospital a few days after surrendering. “It is difficult to understand how a woman with such injuries could walk like that at the Writers’ Buildings,” wondered a senior television journalist.