KOLKATA: A rebel Trinamool Congress worker on Sunday assaulted West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and party MP Abhishek Banerjee, who was trying to convince the party workers at Purba Medinipur district that the TMC had no role in the Saradha scam.
The TMC rebel climbed onto the dais on which Abhishek was addressing the gathering and slapped him on his face. Even as the stunned MP tried to regain composure, other partymen roughed up the rebel, who has been admitted to a government hospital in a critical condition.
Abhishek, whose rise was meteoric after Mamata made him the president of the party’s all India youth wing Yuva siding Tamluk MP Subhendu Adhikary, was attending a party programme at Chandipur in Tamluk when the incident occurred.
Subhendu, whose father Sisir Adhikary is also an MP from Kanthi in the same district, had turned a rebel after Mamata removed him from the post of TMC youth wing without any notice. The Adhikary duo have been controlling the entire Purba Medinipur district and there were reports about them leaving the party and being in touch with the BJP central leadership.
TMC general secretary Partha Chatterjee said strong action would be initiated against the assaulter. The police would also be directed to initiate criminal cases against the rebel, who had been instigated by other parties, he said.
While condemning the incident, the opposition parties said it was a factional feud within the TMC which had now come out in the open and the party was about to split.
West Bengal BJP president Rahul Sinha said the TMC was already a divided house and such an incident in that district was expected, while CPM state secretary Biman Bose said it showed how the party functioned and it was a result of the infighting within the party, which was ruled by a single woman.