TMC brass faces public ire due to its misrule: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

NEW DELHI: Congress Working Committee member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday condemned post-poll mob attacks on Trinamool Congress functionaries, including Abhishek Banerjee, in West Bengal, but said 15 years of "misrule and highhandedness" by the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee regime have made these people targets of public anger, with "some BJP local leaders too" stoking it.

After TMC lost power, the opposition space has opened up in the state for other parties and it is now for the Congress leadership to manoeuvre this space with political foresight, said the former state Congress chief.

Talking to ET about the post-poll situation in West Bengal, Chowdhury said: "We are currently witnessing the tradition of post-poll, post-regime change, cycle of violence in West Bengal. This, unfortunately, is unique to West Bengal's electoral history. Post-poll violence had taken place when the Left Front took over from Congress and subsequently when TMC wrested power from the Left. The same trend has now returned as BJP overthrew the TMC regime. This can't be allowed to continue."


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On the attacks on TMC members, he said: "It is deplorable, and I appeal to the state government to take measures to stop this violence. But then, the way the TMC government conducted itself during last 15 years by unleashing muscle power and state machinery against political opponents, the way ruling TMC's leaders and cadre indulged in corruption and hooliganism against general public have exposed TMC leaders and made them target of post-poll public anger and revulsion."

On the attack on Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of Mamata Banerjee, he said: "As a political functionary and MP, Abhishek Banerjee, like all other Opposition leaders, has a right to carry on with his political engagements, and he should be allowed to do that."

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On what he thought about the role of the ruling BJP in the attacks, Chowdhury said: "Firstly, it is the TMC regime's misrule and corruption that helped BJP wrest West Bengal through a constant narrative before the people, especially Hindus, that only BJP can end the TMC's reign of terror. The state police, like a chameleon, have overnight changed colour and are working hard to appease the new BJP government. TMC goondas, who had wreaked havoc, are now offering to be the foot soldiers of the BJP establishment, but the new ruling party has, so far, not fully opened its doors to them."

Chowdhury said he "appeal to the BJP government, especially the chief minister, to be proactive in quelling the post-poll violence".

Asked about Mamata Banerjee calling for an INDIA bloc meeting, he said: "INDIA bloc is a national issue and it is for the Congress high command to deal with it."