Mamata: Not meant to be disrespectful, we respect all...

Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, in reply to a media question on her party MP Kalyan Banerjee’s mimicry of Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, said the act was not meant to be disrespectful.

TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee also said that he never had any intention to hurt or disrespect Dhankhar.

Mamata while asked about the mimicry row said: “We respect everyone. It was not disrespectful. It was just politically, casually... You would not even have known it if Rahul ji had not recorded it.”

Banerjee was in the Parliament complex on Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over pending central funds for the state.

A political row broke out on Tuesday after Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee mimicked Dhankhar during the Opposition’s protest on the stairs of Parliament against the MPs’ suspension.

The MP said that he did not intend to hurt anyone but did not offer any apology for the mimicry act which has been described by Dhankhar as an insult to the post of Vice-President, the farmers and his

own community.

“Did not have any intention at all to hurt anyone, including the Vice-President. Have respect for constitutional positions,” Banerjee said on Wednesday. He further mentioned: “Mimicry is not an offence; they (BJP) are trying to change the main issue which is whether suspension of Opposition MPs was right.”

He claimed that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had done it in the past.

He noted that Dhankhar had been a Governor of his home state West Bengal and like him a lawyer.

With 141 Opposition MPs suspended from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for disrupting proceedings, many of them held a protest at Parliament’s main entrance on Tuesday. During the protest, Banerjee mimicked Dhankhar’s mannerisms amid cheers from his colleagues. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was seen shooting a video of the act with his mobile phone.