‘Mamata Banerjee has told TMC leaders to restrict public comments’

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee pulled up some senior leaders and ministers at a recent meeting for making certain comments that she does not approve, the party’s office bearers said on Wednesday.

“Banerjee named some senior leaders at the closed-door meeting she held with legislators and Parliament members at her south Kolkata residence on March 17 to discuss strategy for the coming panchayat and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” a TMC leader who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity.

“One of the leaders is Kolkata mayor and cabinet minister Firhad Hakim. She told him to speak in public only on issues related to Kolkata and consult her before talking on any other subject,” the TMC leader said.

It is not clear which statement of Firhad Hakim prompted Banerjee’s reprimand. A day before the meeting, Hakim told reporters that he had known former minister Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested last year by ED, for years and never imagined he could sell government jobs.

A TMC leader said it was on account of the chief minister rebuke that Hakim declined to comment when he was asked about another suspect in the school recruitment case on March 18.

“Minister Akhil Giri, who embarrassed the TMC by making a controversial comment on President Droupadi Murmu in November last year, was also censured against by Banerjee at the March 17 meeting,” said a TMC legislator who did not want to be identified.

Some leaders were also cautioned for entering the meeting room with mobile phones although there was a strict instruction that all electronic devices must be deposited with the security staff.

Three days before the meeting was held at Banerjee’s residence, the TMC expelled Shantanu Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh, two youth wing leaders arrested by ED in the school recruitment case.