‘Stick to your Lok Sabha seat’: Mamata Banerjee's message to TMC MP Mahua Moitra
The West Bengal chief minister asked the outspoken Trinamool MP to stick to her own area during a booth-level workers' meeting in Kolkata.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has reportedly given a stern message to Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and asked her to maintain a tone of caution regarding the party's organisational affairs beyond her own constituency. The incident happened on Thursday at the booth-level workers' meeting in Kolkata. The two were apparently discussing the party's position in Nadia district, which is Moitra's home turf and used to be her party seat.
Moitra was elected as the Trinamool MLA from the Karimpur constituency in Nadia district in 2016. However, in the 2019 elections, she was fielded as the party candidate from the Krishnagar Lok Sabha constituency, which she went on to win.
“Karimpur is no longer Mahua’s jurisdiction. It is under Abu Taher.… He will look after it,” Banerjee was heard saying. “You look after your Lok Sabha seat and (stick to) that area,” the chief minister told the MP.
This is not the first time Banerjee rebuked Moitra's comments. In December last year, a video of an internal administrative meeting had gone viral in which she apparently scolded Moitra as she sat at the meeting, silently nodding.
“Mahua, let me give you a clear message here. I do not believe in the politics of putting up a show on YouTube, paper, digital, etc,” the Bengal CM had told her.
Mahua Moitra, who is known to be outspoken and unabashed in expressing her opinions, has often got entangled in conflicts with her own party head. Her comment over the film Kaali's poster being about a “meat-eating, alcohol-accepting” goddess had also drawn severe criticism from TMC, which was left in an awkward position.