New Delhi/Kolkata: Hours before her meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi over the “unplanned” implementation of the SIR in Bengal, Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Monday confronted Delhi Police personnel deployed outside Banga Bhawan in Chanakyapuri, alleging harassment of families affected by the exercise who had been brought there.
Scenes of high drama unfolded as Banerjee questioned the “heavy” security deployment at the state’s official residence and urged the police to act with sensitivity towards those affected by the SIR process. After being informed of the alleged “excesses” by the Delhi Police against people from Bengal staying at Banga Bhawan, the Chief Minister went to the spot and accused the authorities of “torturing” Bengalis in the national capital.
“People from Bengal are being threatened in Banga Bhawan…Our case is going on in the Supreme Court…People have died due to the SIR,” Banerjee said while talking to reporters. “I am here to see our people and the atrocities of the Delhi Police,” she added.
Addressing reporters, Banerjee also said that the people from Bengal had come to raise their issue with the Election Commission (EC), but they were being “threatened”.
She questioned the heavy police deployment outside Banga Bhawan but said responsibility lay not with the police, instead blaming those at the top, including the Union Home minister.
“Delhi Police have been deployed wherever SIR-affected families are staying. Where are they when blasts occur in the city? I don’t blame the police; I blame those at the top. This is incompetence,” Banerjee said.
“When the Home minister comes to Bengal, we give him the red carpet. But when we come to Delhi, you give us the black carpet,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police refuted the harassment claims of the CM in the national capital, stating that the deployment outside Banga Bhawan was part of security.
Refuting her claims, Special Commissioner of Police (Perception Management and Media Cell) Devesh Chandra Srivastav said, while addressing a Press conference, that no police personnel entered the Banga Bhawan.
“We didn’t restrict anyone living in Banga Bhawan and didn’t stop the entry or exit of people. Deployment outside the building was a part of security as West Bengal chief minister has Z+ security,” he said.
The West Bengal Police had already informed us about her visit to the Bhawan, and we had made appropriate arrangements for her, he added.
Around 50 families affected by the SIR in Bengal were brought to the national capital and are staying at various state government properties, with a few later taken to the EC meeting.
Referring to the Election Commission, Banerjee said: “They get nervous when I come here… I could have brought lakhs of people.” Claiming that Delhi had become “like a zamindari”, she said there was no place for the poor in the national capital.
Several TMC MPs—including Saket Gokhale, Dola Sen, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Bapi Haldar—rushed to different locations in the national capital, including the West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited guesthouse in Delhi’s Kailash Colony, where SIR-affected families were staying.
The Speaker of Bengal Assembly also condemned the incident and suggested the chief ministers of all non-BJP-ruled states should stand in solidarity with the Bengal CM.