Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday ended her silence on the CBI’s questioning of nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira over its probe into alleged coal smuggling in some western districts of the state, giving it a spin of women being unsafe in the saffron regime.

The day after the CBI questioned Rujira, wife of the Diamond Harbour MP, for less than an hour in connection with the probe, the Trinamul chief — without taking names or specifying otherwise that she was referring to the Rujira incident — accused the BJP of hobnobbing with coal pilferers. She attacked the BJP for allegedly trying to barge into homes and hounding women because of her political resistance to the saffron camp.

“Two leaders in this nation now. One is a hnodol kutkut… the other one is kimbhut kimakar (both adjectives broadly mean grotesque in Bengali). Showing us physical force…. Today, just think, where they are trying to hit,” she said at Sahaganj.

Rujira was questioned as a “witness” by the central agency.

“Because I am in politics and you are furious with me… because I am the only one refusing to shut up against you…. But does that allow you to disrespect our mothers and sisters? Barging into our homes. A little girl, 22/23-year-old (Rujira is 33)… a daughter, a wife of the family… calling her a coal thief. That too while hobnobbing with the real coal thieves yourselves. Have you no shame?” asked the visibly furious chief minister.

“This is very simple and also predictable. They would have used such agencies to hound that family and others in the top-tier leadership over baseless allegations regarding scams such as Saradha and Narada. But many of the accused from those scams have defected from Trinamul to the BJP now, so that won’t happen,” said a senior Trinamul Rajya Sabha member.

The chief minister said “The mothers and sisters of our homes are kawyela (coal) thieves today? Your entire body is covered in mawyela (filth)…. The demonetisation scam’s money alone, where it went… only you must answer, Narendra Modi.”

Going on to accuse the saffron camp of general misogyny, she warned women against allowing the BJP to rise here.

“A lot of lofty things he (Modi) said here. Women here are supposedly not safe. Are they safe within the BJP? What about women in Uttar Pradesh, in Bihar, in Madhya Pradesh….? Because women here are doing well, they are envious and shameless,” she said.

“I don’t need to tell you how much I care about women, how much our party does….”

“The BJP party, I know shameful horrific stories about women and their condition in that party. Women are not even safe within that party. People want to speak out, but cannot,” she added. “I know everything. I won’t say it, because my language is not as obscene as yours.”