Sharmistha

Calcutta, Sept. 25: Sharmistha Kar Purkayastha, a school principal and the Calcutta police commissioner’s wife who lives separately, has joined the BJP, saying the party was “the best platform to articulate my protest against atrocities on women” in Bengal.

Asked whether her political foray would embarrass her husband, Sharmistha replied: “How does it matter whether he toes Trinamul’s line or not? I believe in my individual freedom. So, the decision on joining the BJP is my own…. I live separately with my mother.”

“I am alarmed at the rise in crimes and violence on women in the city and in the state as well. As the mother of my seven-year-old daughter, I am deeply disturbed by the recurrence of such atrocities on women,” Sharmistha said at the state BJP’s headquarters after joining the party in the presence of state unit president Rahul Sinha.

Referring to the alleged police brutality on Jadavpur University students, Sharmistha later told The Telegraph: “The alleged baton charge by policemen on unarmed students of Jadavpur University while they were peacefully demonstrating is condemnable beyond words.”

When reminded that her husband had described the police handling of the campus situation at a media conference as “sambedansheel (sensitive)”, she said: “I don’t know what he said. But I am saying this on the basis of what I have seen on television.”

When commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha was contacted tonight for comment, he said: “I am busy. Please call me later.”

An MSc in biology with a post-doctoral degree in antibiotics, Sharmistha, 47, has been working as the principal of the Gyan Bharati Balika Vidyalaya, a higher secondary school for girls, for the past nine years.

Asked about her daughter, Sharmistha said: “My daughter stays with both of us, sometimes with me, sometimes with my husband.”

The state BJP leadership is said to be considering a key post for her in the party’s women’s wing. “We want wives of other top cops and bureaucrats to follow Sharmisthadi,” Sinha said.

A section of BJP leaders said they would soon launch a movement with Sharmistha in the lead to target the Mamata Banerjee government on the “deteriorating law-and-order situation”.