New Delhi: BJP MP Locket Chatterjee Friday broke down at a press conference and said the West Bengal panchayat elections were “nothing but a shameful phase of violence and atrocities against women”, recounting alleged incidents of sexual assault on women candidates.
The Hooghly MP said that on 8 July, the day of panchayat elections, a gram sabha candidate of the BJP was stripped naked inside a polling booth and molested in Howrah’s Panchla town.
The MP further said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken on the Manipur case, he had also asked other states to strengthen law and order. She was referring to the PM’s remarks made a day after a purported video of two women being paraded naked by a group of men in Manipur went viral on social media.
#WATCH | BJP MP Locket Chatterjee breaks down as she recounts an alleged incident of sexual assault by TMC workers of a BJP candidate during Panchayat polls on 8th July in Howrah district of West Bengal pic.twitter.com/45VdDGqDXi
— ANI (@ANI) July 21, 2023
Chatterjee’s press conference comes a day after Modi made the remarks as part of his address ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament.
The BJP MP questioned the “silence” of not just West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, but also Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sonia Gandhi.
“Congress has also joined hands with Mamata Banerjee now. That is why both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are silent. These people cry in other states, but they are silent in West Bengal,” Chatterjee said.
She added: “We are also women. We are also the daughters of this country. West Bengal is also part of India. We also want to save our daughters. We want you to talk about the daughters of our region too.”
Calling the Manipur incident “highly unfortunate”, she said: “We condemn it. But what has happened in West Bengal is equally shameful. The elections held in West Bengal have not been panchayat elections but ‘khoon ka chunaav’. These elections were nothing but a shameful phase of violence and atrocities against women.”
The MP started crying while addressing the press conference and urged people to “pay attention towards the daughters of West Bengal too”.
An ANI report Friday quoted West Bengal DGP Manoj Malviya as saying that the police investigated the alleged assault of the BJP candidate, but found no evidence.
ANI also carried an interview of the alleged victim.
West Bengal | "They dragged me outside the polling booth holding my hair & threw me down the stairs. They also ripped my clothes. Later, I went to a nearby house to borrow clothes to wear. Had my husband not been present there they could have done anything to me. He saved me. I… pic.twitter.com/jg5XR43qS2
— ANI (@ANI) July 21, 2023
‘No video because everyone had guns in their hands’
According to Chatterjee, on 11 July, the day of counting in Domjur, a candidate from Mamata’s TMC was also assaulted. “She filed an FIR too. But there is no video because people were carrying guns inside the booth. Will we only talk about such issues when a video goes viral? Why is everybody keeping mum in these cases?”
Coming down heavily on Mamata, Chatterjee said a lot of violence and cases of atrocities against women are going unreported in Bengal. “Despite being a woman chief minister, Mamata Banerjee is not stopping the atrocities on women,” she said as she burst into tears.
Elaborating on the alleged incident of sexual assault of a BJP gram sabha candidate, she said “there is no video because everyone who was present there had guns in their hands”.
BJP’s West Bengal chief Sukanta Majumdar meanwhile said: “The incident that happened in Manipur is very sad, we strongly condemn it, such incident should not happen anywhere. But in Bengal’s South Panchla, a woman member of the BJP was paraded naked for contesting the panchayat elections. Is this less sad than Manipur?”
“The only difference is that it doesn’t have a video. Because Mamata Banerjee’s police and goons do not allow anyone to make videos,” he alleged.
Soon after her press conference, the BJP held another press conference highlighting cases of atrocities towards women in Rajasthan.
“According to media reports, 17 to 18 rape incidents are happening in Rajasthan every day and about 5 to 7 murder cases are registered every day,” said Union Minister Gajendra Shekhawat.
He added: “When a woman MLA of Congress is questioned about incidents of atrocities on women in Rajasthan, she says that ‘even I am not safe even though I live in security’.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also read: ‘Begged mob to leave me, said I am a mother’: Kuki woman in viral video recalls 2-hr assault