Thursday, 04 June 2026
Thursday, 04 June 2026
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday started her day-long dharna in central Kolkata to protest against alleged post-poll attacks on party workers and leaders following the BJP's victory in recent assembly elections.
She alleged that the BJP "rigged" counting in 177 of the 294 seats, which went for polls to win the recently concluded Bengal elections.
Mamata asserted that she would not abandon TMC workers in "these difficult times", referring to large-scale arrests of leaders on charges of corruption, intimidation and extortion, and the alleged torture of party workers after the TMC's defeat in the recent assembly polls.
She reached the dharna site at Esplanade's Y-channel after the TMC's appeal to hold the protest at the adjacent Rani Rashmoni Road was turned down by the Kolkata Police.
“Very soon, all anti-BJP parties will meet in Delhi. Wait for a few days and we will soon announce our country-wide course of action,” the TMC chief said, referring to the scheduled INDIA bloc meeting next week.
Banerjee reached the dharna site after the TMC's appeal to hold the protest at the adjacent Rani Rashmoni Road was turned down by the Kolkata Police.
"We were not given permission to set up a stage or use microphones," Banerjee said, while addressing the crowd using a megaphone.
“I will fight or die,” she chanted at the dharna site.
“We will move court if other parties are allowed to hold political programmes at the venue where we were denied permission to protest, or if they are allowed to hold meetings with microphones. Law cannot be imposed with discrimination,” she added.
Mamata said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has left Bengal “in hands of anti-socials, bulldozer-happy politicians, pushing state into darkness," news agency PTI reported.
She alleged that while the common people and small traders were living in fear, and hawkers were being evicted without a proper rehabilitation plan, the ruling BJP was using "money and power" to engineer defections in her party.
The former chief minister, however, asserted that the departure of leaders from the party fold for personal interests would help rebuild the organisation, and the TMC would emerge stronger from the crisis.
Banerjee said that 12 TMC workers had been killed since the Assembly elections and that thousands of party activists had been arrested, while many others had been forced to flee their homes.
She declared the protest would go ahead regardless of official permission. "If we are not allowed to hold a dharna there, I will sit wherever I am stopped. I am ready to be arrested," Banerjee said.
Sharing photos of people joining the protest, the official handle of TMC said, “no amount of propaganda can manufacture this kind of connection with the people. It is built on years of trust, compassion and unwavering commitment to Bengal.”
The protest was marked by chaos, with TMC workers shouting slogans amid the former chief minister's speech.
Banerjee was seen accompanied by the party's old guards Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Derek O'Brien, Kalyan Banerjee and Dola Sen, amid the conspicuous absence of most of the fresh faces who won the assembly seats on TMC tickets.
The party supremo, however, asserted that the dharna, to protest Saturday's attack on her nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, alleged post-poll violence and hawker eviction, will continue till the evening as scheduled.
The party supremo, however, asserted that the dharna, to protest Saturday's attack on her nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, alleged post-poll violence and hawker eviction, will continue till the evening as scheduled.
Banerjee alleged that the recent assault of Abhishek at Sonarpur was carried out in a planned manner.
“The BJP had smuggled in its workers from before, fed them and even tutored them how to act and talk. Had a TMC worker not supplied Abhishek with a helmet, the injury from the stone hurled at him could have turned fatal,” she alleged.
She further accused that the private hospitals where Abhishek was taken to were brought under “immense pressure” of the Suvendu Adhikari establishment to not allow admission to the injured leader.
Speaking on the controversy over signatures of TMC MLAs endorsing Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of Opposition, Banerjee maintained that the MLAs had signed the party’s meet attendance book in accordance with the decision taken at the meeting concerned.
“The Assembly Speaker should have conducted forensic tests of the signatures if he had confusion about their authenticity. The BJP is playing a dirty game,” she said.
