West Bengal: Suvendu Adhikari targets Mamata Banerjee for cancelling Nandigram rally

Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) drew flak from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday for cancelling the chief minister’s scheduled rally at Nandigram in East Midnapore district on January 7.

Nandigram, where a three-year-long violent struggle against acquisition of farm land for industry played a key role in helping Banerjee oust the Left Front government in 2011, was the assembly constituency of former minister Suvendu Adhikari till he resigned from the state assembly and joined the BJP in presence of union home minister Amit Shah on December 19.

“Those who talked of holding a rally in Nandigram have suddenly vanished. But I keep my word. I will hold a rally on January 8 and there will be more than 100,000 people,” Adhikari said at a rally in Nandigram on Tuesday.

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Adhikari also took potshots at Abhishek Banerjee, the chief minister’s nephew, calling him a tolabaaj (extortionist).

The reason TMC leaders cited on Monday for cancelling Banerjee’s January 7 rally was that Akhil Giri, the legislator from the district’s Ramnagar constituency and the event’s organiser, had tested positive for Covid-19.

On November 10, Adhikari threw his first veiled challenge at the TMC while addressing a meeting in Nandigram. Till then, the differences between Adhikari and the TMC had not become public.

Adhikari, who hails from East Midnapore and whose father and older brother represent two Lok Sabha seats in the district for the TMC, has claimed in his recent speeches that he played the crucial role in the Nandigram movement from the ground since it began in 2007 while TMC leaders based in Kolkata used to visit the disturbed zone only for media coverage.

Engaged in an uninterrupted exchange of allegations and rhetoric since Adhikari’s defection, TMC and BJP leaders on Monday made the rally’s cancellation an issue.

“We cannot hold the rally without Giri. A rally will be held later,” said panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee.

“Giri is the legislator from Ramnagar. What has he got to do with Nandigram? He cannot even assemble 500 people. The chief minister should stop milking Nandigram for political gains,” quipped Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, referring to the decade-old land movement at a press conference.

Significantly, Adhikari himself threw a challenge at the chief minister when he addressed a rally at Kanthi, his hometown, on December 24, a day after he was branded a “traitor” at a TMC roadshow in the same town. The TMC rally, which was addressed by Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and urban development minister Firhad Hakim, was also organised by Giri.

“They (TMC) claim Mamata Banerjee will contest the coming assembly polls alone in the state and she has put in place the next generation of leadership. If that is true then why is she sending ministers to Midnapore? She will address a rally at Nandigram on January 7. I know what she is going to say. I will hold a rally in Nandigram the very next day and give her a befitting reply,” Adhikari said on December 24.