April 28, 10.39 AM IST || Pocket News Alert
Session-5: Kaise Ayenge Bengal Ke Achche Din at Panchayat Aaj Tak on Bengal Elections
Kaise Ayenge Bengal Ke Achche Din at Panchayat Aaj Tak on Bengal Elections
Speakers at the Session: Sharmistha Mukherjee, Spokesperson, Congress, Shashi Panja, Minister, Women Development & Social Welfare, West Bengal, Madhuja Sen Roy, Leader, CPI (M), Meenadevi Purohit, leader, BJP
KOLKATA, 27 APRIL: FROM traditionally being a liberal city, Kolkata these days is falling into the grip of a misogynist mentality and this is very alarming, Congress leader and President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee said today.
“Very recently, a student of Presidency University was assaulted and humiliated on a Kolkata street by Trinamool linked people for wearing shorts and smoking in the open. It is alarming that this happened in Kolkata that used to be considered the most liberal city in the country,” Mukherjee said speaking at Panchayat Bangal ~ an interactive session organised today in Kolkata by Aaj Tak in connection with the on-going Assembly polls in the state.
She said such trends were setting in Kolkata largely because of the way the ruling Trinamool Congress viewed the crimes against women.
“Be it the Park Street rape or the Kamduni rape and murder case, senior functionaries of the Trinamool, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made very insensitive remarks. Trinamool MP Tapas Pal even threatened that he would get women supporters of other parties raped by his party cadres. This being the mentality of the ruling party, no wonder that Bengal has now climbed up to the third place in the country vis-à-vis crime against women,” the President’s daughter said.
Significantly, she found support on her observations not only from CPI-M’s young face Madhuja Sen Roy, but also from BJP’s Meenadevi Purohit, who also took part in the session.
“During the Left rule the situation was bad. But in Trinamool rule, it has become worst. An upright Kolkata Police officer was shunted out for bringing out the truth that Park Street was actually a gang-rape case not a fabricated one as Mamata Banerjee had suggested soon after the incident,” she said.
Madhuja said that viewing women in low light was a general mentality in the Trinamool and the same has got transmitted in the administration and the police, thus giving criminals a free run. “Till date, Kolkata Police have not been able to nab the main accused in the Park Street rape case. This issue was first flagged not by the Opposition but the public prosecutor in the case,” she said.
Faced with the combined attack of the three Opposition parties, Sashi Panja, the outgoing women and child welfare minister in Mamata Banerjee’s Cabinet, was left alone to defend the Trinamool.
In trying to do so, she ended up blaming her own government’s home department for the spurt in crime against women in Bengal.
“Crime against women or looking down upon women is the result of a general malice that prevails in our society. You cannot hold a government or a minister responsible for this. Besides, these matters do not come under my department and rather, it is the responsibility of the home ministry,” Panja said.
Interestingly, the home department in the outgoing Trinamool government lies under Mamata Banerjee.