New video adds fuel to fire as Sandeshkhali furore simmers
The Trinamool Congress released a new video purporting to show a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader speaking of plans to continue the unrest in Sandeshkhali, where fresh violence took place on Sunday as the political battle between the two parties heated up, especially with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a spate of rallies in West Bengal over the weekend.
The new video, released by the TMC late on Saturday, purportedly shows Gangadhar Koyal, a BJP mandal president from Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas districts, saying he would need at least 50 pistols and 600 cartridges to create unrest in around 50 polling booths under his jurisdiction ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
HT could not independently verify the veracity of the video.
The 46-minute video was uploaded by TMC spokesperson Riju Dutta on X. In the video, Koyal can also be seen purportedly sharing details of the amount of alcohol and funds he would need in the run-up to the general elections.
“It would cost ₹2.5 lakh to arrange alcohol for 50 booths with ₹5,000 for each booth. Around 30% women and 70%
would consume alcohol. This is the minimum requirement,” he is heard saying.
Koyal was first seen in a purported sting video released by the TMC on May 4, in which he had claimed that the Sandeshkhali unrest was orchestrated by the BJP and the party had paid village women to lodge fake complaints of rape against TMC leaders. He had also claimed that ₹2,000 were paid to the women.
“At least 72 women received a one-time payment,” he is heard claiming in the fresh video released on Saturday.
The BJP hit back, sharing a
video on X on Friday in which one woman, who was featured in the sting video, claimed that she was threatened to make the statements adding that the sting video was doctored.
The video war is only a part of the spiralling confrontation between the two sides. The ruling party, led by Mamata Banerjee, filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking criminal proceedings against National Commission for Women (NCW) chief Rekha Sharma and BJP leaders, including Piyali Das, for “commission of serious offences of forgery, cheating, fraud, intimimen dation and criminal conspiracy upon innocent women of Sandeshkhali.”
TMC’S leader and parliamentarian Derek O’brien separately released a “fact-check” report, calling the prime minister the “Lyin King” over the allegations pertaining to Sandeshkhali.
“We often fact check Narendra Modi... ‘The Lyin King’ just ended his third and fourth speeches. So much of deceit, falsehood and hate, that even our fact check meter broke down,” the TMC Rajya Sabha member said in a post on the microblogging platform.
“Two Sandeshkhali videos exposed BJP’S conspiracy to malign Bengal and humiliate women. Concocted by Bengal LOP Suvendu Adhikhari. Bribed and forced women to sign a blank paper and file false rape complaints. BJP shelters molesters: Brij Bhushan Singh, Prajwal Revanna. Unnao, Kathua, Hathras,” the document shared by O’brien read.
In the rallies, Modi accused the Trinamool Congress of indulging in vote-bank politics and said that “goons of the ruling party” were threatening the “tormented women” of Sandeshkhali, an allusion to the Bjp-released video.
Modi alleged that under the TMC rule, Hindus have become “second-class citizens” in West
Bengal and asserted that “as long as there is Modi, no one can repeal the CAA”.
On Sunday, fresh violence erupted in Sandeshkhali with BJP workers, mostly women, attacking TMC workers, alleging they were making fake videos. The Sandeshkhali police station was also gheraoed. BJP’S Basirhat Lok Sabha candidate Rekha Patra led the attack on TMC worker Dilip Mallick and staged a protest outside the police station.
State minister Shashi Panja accused the BJP and Patra of creating massive trouble in Sandeshkhali and said, “Violence is going on under her leadership. This is Modi’s guarantee. If Modi can threaten the women in his speech, then under his command, such things are going on in Sandeshkhali.”
Sandeshkhali emerged as an unlikely battleground since the beginning of the year when a local TMC strongman, Sheikh Shahjahan, was accused of widespread extortion and instances of sexual abuse that he and his aides unleashed on the local community. The incidents spanned multiple court cases and attacks on federal investigation agencies, whom the chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s party accuses of acting at the behest of the BJP that rules at the Centre.