Three days after her controversial statement about “outsiders” being brought in through a “plan” to change the demographic makeup of the Bhabanipur Assembly seat to reduce Trinamool Congress voters, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday accused the “godi media” of misquoting her to promote the saffron cause.
During the inauguration of a Kali Puja at Girish Park on Friday evening, the Trinamool chief said: “They have picked up one of my statements and tried to twist it to give it a different meaning.
“As far as bohiragoto is concerned, I referred to a particular party. They are bringing people from outside.... Those who reside here, I did not refer to them as bohiragoto (outsiders). Actually, I was scolding my councillors, and I can very well do that in my party meetings,” she said.
“But the media presented my words from a different angle. Nowadays, we have the godi media. I say something and they show something else. They are experts in distorting and spreading disinformation, but they don’t know that I always clarify.”
Mamata was referring to her remarks made at a Vijaya event organised for the Bhabanipur Assembly area’s leadership by the party on Tuesday at Alipore’s Dhono
Dhanyo auditorium.
In a telephonic speech, as she was in north Bengal at the time, she had said then that Bhabanipur was being filled with “outsiders” in a “planned manner”.
“I told my councillors, why are you not removing the shanties and building houses there under the Banglar Bari scheme? Living in shanties is no crime, but why will they (TMC councillors) not try to revamp it? Someone will buy a plot and then forcibly remove the people residing there. Are they not humans?” she asked on Friday.
Nearly one out of every two Bhabanipur electors is a non-Bengali. The constituency has a large number of Punjabis, Gujaratis, Biharis, Marathis, Odiyas, Marwaris, and people from Uttar Pradesh, besides some from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. The socio-economically diverse constituency has around 80 per cent non-Muslim votes, with Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains in large numbers.
“Bhabanipur is being filled with outsiders, being done by planning,” Mamata had said on Tuesday, ordering her local leadership to seriously look into this.
“I see nowadays that in many places, slums of the poor are being demolished and big residential projects are being built there. I do not support this. Our voters are being driven away. Bhabanipur is being filled with outsiders in a planned manner,” the chief minister had said.
The remarks were not only heavily criticised but also mocked by the saffron camp, as her message came against the backdrop of the BJP having drastically lowered the gap with Trinamool in the Bhabanipur Assembly segment by over 50,000 votes in the Lok Sabha election last year for Kolkata Dakshin. The ruling party’s lead was merely 8,297.
In the September 2021 bypoll, Mamata had won Bhabanipur by a record margin of 58,832 votes, securing nearly 72 per cent of the vote share.
“(The bohiragoto party) is bringing people from outside. They add the names of ten outsiders alongside the names of our voters, so that our voters cannot vote. I respect people who stay here from other states, but in the garb of elections, many outsiders come here illegitimately and book hotels and stay there. Those who have a lot of money buy flats here. How can one person have their name in two places?” asked Mamata in an oblique reference to the BJP.
“I spoke about this and warned my councillors to be vigilant, but my statements were misconstrued.... I do not have to prove to anyone how much I believe in unity and peaceful coexistence,” she added.
'Safest state'
Inaugurating a Kali Puja pandal at Janbazar in Calcutta, Mamata slammed the BJP for attempting to divide people by spreading misinformation during elections, and asserted that Bengal was one of the safest states in the country.
"They (the BJP) spread lies and try to divide people. You say Bengal is not safe, but don’t people move freely and safely across the state?" Banerjee asked.
