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BJP lodges police complaint against Mamata Banerjee over jail remark
BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari said if the police refuse to register the FIR, he would wait for 72 hours and then approach the court, requesting to take cognisance of the complaint
Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal legislative assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, has lodged a police complaint against chief minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly threatening to arrest Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) men if her own party leaders were arrested by central agencies.
“They have sent four of our legislators to jail, thinking that they would bring down our numbers in this way. If they send four of my people to jail in corruption cases and malign them, I will send eight of them (BJP men) to jail in murder and other cases,” Banerjee said on Thursday while addressing Trinamool Congress in Kolkata.
At least five high-profile TMC leaders, including four legislators, of whom two were state ministers, are now in judicial custody after they were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in various alleged scams.
“I have emailed my complaint to the officer-in-charge of the Hare Street police station, requesting him to lodge an FIR against the chief minister for the comment she made at the Netaji Indoor Stadium. She threatened, by taking a vow on behalf of her party to arrest eight of our (BJP) people,” Adhikari wrote on his X handle.
He also stated that if the police refuse to register the FIR, he would wait for 72 hours and then approach the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court, requesting to take cognisance of the complaint.
“The actions of such a nature discloses offences which are cognizable in nature and directly trying to target me and the other members. Thus the act and gesture attract the offences punishable under sections 182, 194, 195A, 211, 203, 505 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. Kindly treat this letter of complaint for the purpose of registration of FIR,” he wrote.
Adhikari, who was earlier with the TMC, joined the BJP in December 2020 in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah. He defeated Banerjee by 1,956 votes in Nadigram constituency in the 2021 state assembly polls. Banerjee later contested from Bhowanipore and won.
The chief minister, in her speech, which lasted for more than an hour, also said she doesn’t believe that the arrested TMC leaders in various alleged scams were corrupt.
“Today you are laughing because our party leaders Anubrata Mondol, Partha Chatterjee, Manik Bhattacharya, Jyoti Priya Mallick and a few other leaders are in jail. This tradition will continue. In future, when you would no longer be on the chair, where would you be? In a cell?” she said adding that the Centre has kept everyone at gun-point.
