Abhishek Banerjee, the national general secretary of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal of engaging in political vendetta against him. This accusation follows a lengthy interrogation by the Kolkata police, where he was questioned for over five hours at the Shakespeare Sarani police station in the state capital on Tuesday.
“Efforts were made yesterday to harass our workers at our party office. “People are not fools. They can see the truth. Banerjee trashed the charges. “Nobody was molested. On the contrary, videos show police dragging our workers down the staircase. Tariq, one of our arrested workers, was tortured in custody. Three more were arrested without notices being served to them as per law.
Banerjee, who was summoned to the police station in connection with a clash between his supporters with government officials who went to his Camac Street office to remove an unauthorised billboard on August 27. The police have already arrested 13 people on charges of attacking police and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) personnel on August 27.
If EVMs of some assembly seats are examined now, people will know how the BJP came to power,” Banerjee said, referring to the TMC’s allegation that electoral malpractices led to the BJP victory in the state elections in April. Banerjee, his secretary Sumit Roy, TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien, former MLA and retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Humayun Kabir and senior TMC leader Baishyanar Chatterjee are named in three separate first information reports (FIRs) registered following the incident including one that accuses the TMC leaders of sexual harasssment of females police personnel, a non-bailable offence, according to the police. There are many procedural lapses,” Banerjee said. Or, so many files wouldn’t have been destroyed in a mysterious fire at the Alipore administrative building after the BJP came to power,” Banerjee said.
Had the administration shown this eagerness to conduct fire audits earlier, so many people wouldn’t have died at the two hotels in Tarapith and Kolkata.
