‘Centre tormenting citizens’: Mamata blames BJP for Panihati man’s suicide

Kolkata: Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched a vitriolic attack on the BJP-led Centre after a 57-year-old man from North 24-Parganas’ Panihati allegedly committed suicide, leaving behind a suicide note that read “NRC is responsible” for his death.

While Mamata accused the Central government of “tormenting innocent citizens” with NRC threat, Abhishek demanded an FIR against both Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar holding them responsible for the death. Abhishek asserted that the people of Bengal will avenge this death democratically and give a befitting reply to the BJP.

“One committed suicide in Panihati after the announcement of the launch of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and he wrote in the suicide note that NRC is responsible. How much blood will Shah and Kumar require? People of Bengal will give a befitting reply to what happened in Bengal today. Shah and Kumar are responsible for this. BJP has become so arrogant. Trinamool Congress is beside the family of the victim. Did any BJP leaders visit the house of the victim?” asked Abhishek while addressing a press conference.

Abhishek further stated: “People’s lives have no importance to the BJP. It does not matter to BJP if people die. People died in the past due to the anti-people initiatives of the BJP. You (BJP) have started the game, but we will take it to the finishing line.” The incident came at a time when the Election Commission of India (ECI) began the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. “What greater indictment can there be of the BJP’s politics of fear and division?” The Chief Minister asked on social media.

In a post on X, the Chief Minister expressed her unhappiness over the incident and said it is the result of BJP’s propaganda. She accused the saffron party of turning constitutional democracy into a threat of fear.

“It shakes me to the very core to imagine how, for years, BJP has tormented innocent citizens with the threat of NRC, spreading lies, stoking panic and weaponizing insecurity for votes. They have turned constitutional democracy into a theatre of fear, where people are made to doubt their own right to exist. This tragic death is the direct consequence of BJP’s venomous propaganda,” she said. She further wrote: “Those who sit in Delhi and preach nationalism have pushed ordinary Indians to such despair that they are dying in their own land, fearing they will be declared ‘FOREIGNERS’……I demand that the Central Government stop this heartless game once and for all. Bengal will never allow the NRC, and never allow anyone to strip our people of their dignity or belonging.”

The victim, Pradeep Kar from Panihati, Khardaha, locked the door from inside at his flat last night. He had been staying there for the past 50 years. His body was recovered from his room on Tuesday morning. Senior Trinamool Congress leader Chandrima Bhattacharya, Nirmal Ghosh visited the house of the victim.