Bengal’s politicians seem to be turning more and more off-colour in their speech every day. Deeply censuring this trend, especially in public forums, Mahasweta Devi, social activist and writer, led a rally in the city against this latest trend, just a day after she showered liberal praise on Mamata Banerjee at the Mati Utsav in Burdwan.
“The way politicians have been foul-mouthing each other at public meetings is condemnable. No one should use words that insult others. In the process, those who utter the abuses are also insulted. No one has the right to use abusive language. We will not tolerate such improper language. Politicians should refrain from being foul-mouthed on public forums,” the litterateur said on Sunday.
In the recent past, Trinamool Congress leaders, including minister of food Jyotipriya Mallik, minister of state (MoS) for agriculture Becharam Manna, sports minister Madan Mitra, MPs Sougata, Suvendu Adhikary and Kalyan Banerjee, as well as former CPI(M) minister Anisur Rehman and Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas were at the receiving end of much condemnation for their coarse speech.
In a recent show of anger, Mamata burst out at her security guard in public on February 6, saying he should be ‘whipped’ for having her wait for her car while exiting the Milan Mela grounds after a Book Fair event.
On Saturday, senior Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said, while addressing a public meeting in Rishra, Hooghly, that former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was ‘fake’ and Opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra ‘uncivilised’. “Bhattacharya adorns himself with a white dhoti but his heart is black,” Banerjee said, whole also calling Congress MP and Union minister of state for Railways Adhir Chowdhury a ‘lumpen’.
In a recent show of anger, Mamata burst out at her security guard in public on February 6, saying he should be ‘whipped’ for having her wait for her car while exiting the Milan Mela grounds after a Book Fair event.
On Saturday, senior Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said, while addressing a public meeting in Rishra, Hooghly, that former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was ‘fake’ and Opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra ‘uncivilised’. “Bhattacharya adorns himself with a white dhoti but his heart is black,” Banerjee said, whole also calling Congress MP and Union minister of state for Railways Adhir Chowdhury a ‘lumpen’.
On Saturday, at another public meeting in poll-bound Nalhati in Birbhum district, state urban development minister Firhad Hakim called Salman Rushdie an ‘anti-social’. On January 28, Hakim had called the Forward Bloc ‘a party of eunuchs’, causing transgender groups to register their protest with the human rights commission.
Hakim was reacting to Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas’s slanderous remarks at a public meeting in Arambagh in Hooghly the day before, insinuating that the Trinamool Congress party was a ‘political prostitute’ having ‘slept’ with both the BJP and the Congress parties. On January 27, Trinamool’s MP at Dum Dum Saugata Roy said. “CPI(M) maayer bhogegeche. (CPI(M) has gone to the dogs)”