Dhankhar mimicry row: Kalyan Banerjee maintains mimicry an art, nothing new

Trinamool Congress (TMC) parliamentarian Kalyan Banerjee on Monday maintained mimicry is an art and nothing new days after the alleged disrespect he showed to Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar by mimicking the presiding officer of Parliament’s Upper House triggered a row.

“If someone does not understand humour and art, what can I do? If someone does not have the education, a cultured mind and identifies himself as the target, I am helpless,” he said at a rally in his Lok Sabha constituency of Serampore in West Bengal.

“He is crying so much day and night over a mimicry. This is so childish. What is this? It is like a child who goes to a teacher complaining about a classmate...It is okay. Let this continue. I have no problem.”

Banerjee questioned whether such a mimicry was done for the first time. “We have seen mimicries multiple times outside the Lok Sabha. But inside the Lok Sabha, the person who did mimicry for the first time was [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi. Did you all see it? If you have not, I will install LED screens to show how he did mimicry,” he said.

He added they never took Modi’s mimicry in Parliament seriously. “We were all smiling that day. We took it lightly.” He added that Union Nirmala Sitharaman also did mimicry. “I can also show it.”

He said the right to expression is fundamental. “Sir [Dhankhar], you are a lawyer. Mimicry is an expression. It is my fundamental right. Nobody can destroy it. Right to dissent and protest is also my fundamental right,” he said. “I know you can send me to jail. But you cannot stop me from protesting. You can conspire and murder me, but I will not stop protesting.”

Banerjee referred to Dhankhar linking caste to the alleged insult he was subjected to and asked when Olympian Sakshi Malik levelled charges of sexual harassment against BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Dhankhar never said a word. “Why was a farmer’s daughter sexually harassed?“

BJP leader Samik Bhattacharya hit out at Banerjee. “The people of West Bengal know Kalyan Banerjee. They also know very well whether he has any courtesy and etiquette. Now people of India have seen it. His ill-mannered behaviour is now for everyone to see. There is no way to hide it.”