The four-time Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee confirmed the contents of a WhatsApp chat between him and another MP colleague that has been doing the rounds for the last few days.
Hours after the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya shared the purported chat and some videos on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Banerjee, the Serampore MP and senior counsel who has represented the Bengal government in several key legal cases, threatened to resign at a news conference.
“The day the party tells me I will step down. But I won’t tolerate such insolent behaviour of a woman parliamentarian. If Didi (Mamata Banerjee) says once I will resign. Just because she is a good looking woman and speaks fluent English doesn’t mean she can insult anyone,” Banerjee said. “I will skip one session of the Lok Sabha and see the performance of the party (on the floor of the House). Shouting Murdabad is not enough.”
On Monday at the end of her address to the members of Deprived Teachers Association, Mamata had announced Banerjee’s name among the panel of lawyers selected by the state government for the review petition on the Supreme Court’s decision to scrap the entire panel for the teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run schools.
Banerjee did not say who the “good-looking, fluent English-speaking” parliamentarian he was referring to.
The two MPs apparently were involved in a public spat on Friday – the same day when the Bengal government’s appeal against the Calcutta high court verdict on the cash-for-school jobs scam was rejected.
The purported video footage shared by Malviya is allegedly from the incident that took place outside the Nirvachan Sadan. Banerjee, along with the Trinamool’s leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O’ Brien, has been at the forefront of the issue of duplicate voters’ identity card. A Trinamool delegation had visited the Election Commission of India’s office to submit a memorandum.
Banerjee alleged the woman MP had neither signed the memorandum nor did she join the other parliamentarians, but came on her own the Nirvachan Sadan.
The woman MP is alleged to have asked the central security forces to arrest Banerjee for alleged “abusive behaviour” towards a woman.
“She had abused me and my daughter in the parliament. She is upset because I spoke on the Waqf bill. She wants to hog the limelight. I speak for the common people. She speaks for one industrialist against another industrialist. She attacks only Narendra Modi. Has she ever said a word against Amit Shah or any other BJP leader?” asked Banerjee.
He said unlike many others he did not join the Trinamool since its glory days from 2011. “I am not a quota leader. I am not from another party. I have fought against the CPM,” he said.
In the leaked purported WhatsApp chat, he had allegedly referred to the woman MP as “international great lady.”
No Trinamool leader has yet commented on the alleged spat and Banerjee’s angry response.