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Abhijit Mukherjee |
Agartala, Sept. 7: President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee, a Congress legislator from West Bengal, was manhandled by Congress workers in Tripura yesterday.
Abhijit, who was invited by leaders of a dissident faction, including sitting legislators Subal Bhowmik and Surajit Dutta, arrived here at 11.30am yesterday accompanied by party colleague Joseph Munda, both presumably unaware of the factionalism.
Bhowmik, Dutta and other partymen received them at the airport from where they were taken to the state guesthouse where they met a host of party leaders.
Around 3pm, Abhijit addressed a meeting at the Matangini Pritilata auditorium here where he spoke about the life and achievements of the state’s first chief minister Sachindralal Singha, and called upon partymen to follow the leader’s ideals. The meeting was not as well attended as expected, but things had moved smoothly so far. Singh’s son, Asish Kumar Singh, was a member of the organising committee.
But trouble was brewing at Kalibazar, 12km north of this town, under Mamuita Assembly constituency of West district, where Abhijit was scheduled to address a meeting and inaugurate a library named after the first chief minister of Tripura.
As Abhijit addressed a small gathering, supporters of a Youth Congress leader, Krishnadhan Das, resorted to booing and catcalls. When he came down from the dais, they jostled and scuffled and allegedly pulled him into a thatched office where they demanded to know why many local Congressmen and former associates had not been informed of his programme when CPM and Trinamul members were also present there.
Abhijit tried to convince them that he had nothing to do with the organisation of the programme and had only responded to the invitation from partymen but they abused him and Asish Singh. As the situation threatened to spiral out of control, he was rescued by policemen.
Dissident leaders blamed PCC leaders for the incident but did not name anyone.
PCC president Sudip Roy Barman blamed the CPM and a section of television channels for blowing the incident out of proportions. “It was practically nothing. Local Congressmen in Kalibazar merely asked Asish Kumar Singh why genuine Congressmen, including former associates of Sachindralal Singh, had not been informed of the programme when CPM and Trinamul members were present. This has been blown out of proportion,” he said, adding that he had been busy the entire day in North district.
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