Kolkata: Several Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders on Monday condemned controversial remarks allegedly made by Kalipada Sengupta, a BJP state committee member, during a party programme in West Midnapore’s Daspur, calling it an attack on women’s dignity, freedom and rights.
Sengupta reportedly suggested that husbands should ensure their wives—particularly beneficiaries of the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme—remain locked at home on polling day so that they do not vote in favour of the Trinamool Congress.
Senior Trinamool Congress leader and state minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, on the issue, said: “When women become financially independent, patriarchy panics. That is why the BJP fears Lakshmir Bhandar. Calling it alms, threatening to scrap it, and now openly urging husbands to lock up their wives, THAT is BJP’s true mindset!” Bhattacharya added.
Bhattacharya also stated that people of Bengal will once again give a lesson to the BJP’s misogyny. “BJP’s misogyny will be defeated by millions of fearless women who refuse to be silenced,” Bhattacharya added.
Another leader and minister, Birbaha Hansda, said: “In a shocking display of arrogance, BJP’s State Committee member Kalipada Sengupta has issued a regressive diktat calling for mothers and sisters who benefit from Lakshmir Bhandar to be confined within their homes. The very scheme that has empowered women across Bengal with financial independence is now being openly threatened by the BJP, what brazen audacity! This is the true face of the BJP’s medieval, anti-women mindset.”
TMC MP Sagarika Ghose on X wrote: “Shameful. Once again, the anti-people mindset of the @BJP4India exposed in Bengal. Voters will teach @BJP4India a LESSON.”
Another TMC MP, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, said: “They (BJP) called Lakhsmir Bhandar ‘alms’. Now they want women locked inside homes so we can’t vote. Let me say this clearly: no one cages Bengali women, and no one silences our mandate.”