Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday spoke out against VIP culture and thundered that no car should be stopped to let a VIP pass.

Mamata said she did not like being treated as a VIP.

“Why a VIP will not wait at the traffic signal if others can do so? she asked while addressing a doctors’ convention in the city.

Kolakata Police commissioner Manoj Verma and the state’s director general of police, Rajeev Kumar, were seated on the dais as Mamata spoke on the issue.

“I never tell the police to stop other cars when my car is going. I like to wait in traffic snarl. If people can wait, then why not I? Who am I that I cannot wait?” Mamata asked.

“I have become fed up while telling this. Delaying other people for one hour or two hours because a VIP will go...others, too, have a lot of work,” she said.

Then, in a tone of ordering a decision, the chief minister said: “No car will be stopped for a VIP.”

Calcuttans across the city are used to seeing beacon fitted cars jumping signals, violating lanes and being driven recklessly on roads.

On Monday, the vehicle ferrying the deputy mayor of Calcutta, Atin Ghosh, had a collision with a state bus on SN Banerjee, ripping off the front left portion of the car.

“No one was injured. My car was taking a turn towards SN Banerjee from the Taltala crossing and this bus coming from other direction. It collided with the car. There has been some damage to the car,” Ghosh told reporters.