Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Modi-Mamata war of words over Sandeshkhali

Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday had a war of words over Sandeshkhali.

The Trinamool Congress cited some newly surfaced videos to accuse the Bharatiya Janata Party of fabricating a false narrative about atrocities on women at the village in the state’s North 24 Parganas district

On the other hand, BJP workers, mostly women, staged a protest demonstration in front of the police station in Sandeshkhali. They were led by the party’s candidate the for Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency, Rekha Patra, who was also a face of the agitation against the alleged atrocities on women of Sandeshkhali by the TMC’s local leaders.

The BJP supporters later thrashed a TMC worker. The local TMC legislator, Sukumar Mahato, alleged that Rekha Patra, the candidate of the saffron party, herself, had orchestrated the attack on his party’s worker.

Banerjee alleged that Modi was continuing to “peddle lies” about Sandeshkhali.

"He should be ashamed as the BJP's conspiracy had now become public," the state’s chief minister and the TMC supremo said at an election rally at Amdanga in the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency.

Modi also addressed a rally in Barrackpore. “All of us have seen what the TMC has done to the sisters and mothers of Sandeshkhali. First, the police tried to save the culprits, but now the TMC goons are threatening the sisters, just because the oppressor's name is Shahjahan Sheikh... They are trying to protect him from legal action. Don't be afraid of TMC,” he said and added in another rally in Hooghly: “(The) TMC is using every trick in Sandeshkhali, but none of the oppressors will be spared”.

The TMC cited a new video showing a local BJP leader, Gangadhar Kayal, admitting that over 70 women had received Rs 2,000 each from the party’s leaders in West Bengal for taking part in the protests against Shahjahan Sheikh, a local leader of Mamata Banerjee’s party, and his aides, who were accused of land grabbing and sexual assaulting local women. The video was apparently recorded using a hidden camera.

Kayal had also been seen in the first video, which had surfaced a week ago and which had him saying that he and other saffron party workers had made women register false complaints with police claiming that they had been sexually assaulted by Shahjahan Sheikh and his aides.

Banerjee’s party lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, accusing her of committing serious offences of forgery, cheating, fraud, criminal intimidation, and criminal conspiracy to achieve political gains by using the innocent women of Sandeshkhali.

 “An interview of a woman from Sandeshkhali was shared on X platform on May 10, which reveals that Rekha Sharma, Chairperson of NCW along with members/leaders of the BJP, including Piyali Das – a BJP member from Sandeshkhali – have committed serious offences of forgery, cheating, fraud, criminal intimidation, and criminal conspiracy by exposing innocent women of Sandeshkhali for political gains,” the TMC alleged in its complaint to the EC.

 Sheikh was arrested almost two months after the January 5 attack on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials during a raid at his residence in connection with a case of irregularities in the public distribution system in the state. The assault on the ED was followed by an agitation by local women protesting against atrocities by Sheikh and his aides known to be owing allegiance to the TMC.

The BJP turned the protests by women against the alleged sexual harassment by Sheikh Shahjahan into a major political weapon against the TMC. The party organised tours by the protesting women to different Lok Sabha constituencies to narrate their ordeal.

The saffron party picked up Rekha Patra, who had come to be known as the face of the protest, as its candidate for the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency, which included Sandeshkhali.

The party also sent women from Sandeshkhali to different Lok Sabha constituencies of West Bengal to campaign against the TMC.

One of the videos the TMC cited on Thursday had Rekha Patra, herself, questioning the identity of a group of women, who had been taken to New Delhi by the state BJP leaders and presented to President Draupadi Murmu as the victims of Sandeshkhali to narrate their ordeal.

The BJP, however, accused the TMC of fabricating videos to divert attention from the atrocities on women in Sandeshkhali.