A day after Kolkata Police arrested a person from Mumbai for allegedly conducting recce of TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee’s residence and offices, party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed Tuesday it was an attempt by the BJP to kill her nephew. Campaigning for her party candidate Satabdi Roy at Tarapith in Birbhum, the CM said, “One of the traitors in the BJP said a bomb would explode. If you have a grudge against me, you can kill me with a bomb. You even tried to kill Abhishek, but we came to know in advance. They even conducted a recce at his house, called him on FaceTime, and sought an appointment. Had Abhishek met him, the man would have shot Abhishek and fled.”
The TMC chief was referring to a remark made by BJP MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, who had said there would be a “big explosion on Monday that will shake the TMC and its top brass.”
Kolkata Police revealed that Rajaram Rege, 53, who surfaced during the 26/11 terror attack probe for alleged links with accused David Headley, was “planning something big” against the Diamond Harbour MP. Sources in Kolkata Police expressed suspicion of a potential “terror attack” and “conspiracy of sabotage and threat to Abhishek Banerjee’s life.”
Lashing out at the BJP, Mamata Banerjee questioned why the party was “intimidating Opposition leaders” if it was confident of winning the polls. “These people want to kill everyone or put them behind bars who speak against them. If you were confident that you would win with peoples’ votes, then what was the need to terrorise people?”
Regarding TMC leader Anubrata Mondal, imprisoned after Central agencies arrested him in connection with a cow smuggling case, Mamata said: “They (BJP) used to put Kesto under house arrest every time during the elections, but did people stop giving votes? The people of Birbhum always cast their votes.”
On the Calcutta High Court cancelling appointments of over 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff in schools, the CM said she does not oversee everything and her government could have been given a chance to rectify the “mistakes”.
Speaking at an election rally in Bhatar for the party candidate, former cricketer Kirti Azad, she assured those affected by the High Court order to take the case to the Supreme Court for ‘justice’. “I will not name any judge, but I am talking about the verdict. If you had pointed out the mistakes and directed us to correct them, we could have easily done that. Anybody can make a mistake, I do not look after everything. The Education Department is a separate one. There are different departments like the SSC, the primary board, and the College commission,” she added.
“Will you take responsibility if a candidate commits suicide today? From where will we get so many teachers? Will the children come to school? Will the BJP and RSS workers go and teach there,” asked the CM.
