Controversy erupted in the state’s political arena after a video of a state police chief and a police officer went viral on Sunday. At a meeting of the state police organization, a policeman named Shantanu Sinha Biswas attacked Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari and called the Chief Minister ‘Mother’.
The annual general meeting of the West Bengal Police Welfare Committee was held at Bankura Police Line on Sunday, in which Biswas was heard saying: “You are being persuaded in various ways. There is a leader who has turned off the generator and become a legislator. I don’t want to belittle myself by his name. Wherever he goes to meetings, he insults my name. Whatever he did with the police, I will go to Kantai and answer it.”
Although the policeman did not name anyone, he explained that his sarcasm was aimed at Adhikari by naming him Kanthi.
The Trinamool Congress has been alleging that the Nandigram Assembly polls was rigged. Recently, Rajiv Bandyopadhyay has complained about the Nandigram results from BJP defector and now Trinamool leader Joy Prakash Majumder. Even Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that there is a “conspiracy” behind her defeat in Nandigram.
Biswas was also heard telling the police personnel: “Don’t do anything that will make the Chief Minister of our state, who is our mother, bow her head.”
Adhikari responded to the media in the context of this video and said: “Bengal police are Daldas. I do not want to comment on that.”
However, the BJP raised this issue in the Assembly session on Monday. Chakdah BJP MLA Bankim Ghosh said: “Suvendu Adhikari was verbally abused and insulted at a function of West Bengal Police Welfare Association at Bankura police line. The Leader of the Opposition is equal to a full minister in rank. How can the officers of the police administration make such derogatory remarks against him?”
We want the chief minister to take action against those police officers who have made the derogatory remarks against the Leader of the Opposition, he added.