'Malicious Campaign': Amid Row, Mamata Says She Didn't Speak Against Doctors, Draws Fresh BJP Barbs

Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday took to social media platform X, denying claims that she threatened students protesting against the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor at the state-run RG Kar hospital on August 9. She claimed that some media organisations were running a “malicious disinformation campaign” against her.

Referring to her speech during the 27th foundation day rally of the West Bengal Trinamool Chhatra Parishad in Kolkata on Wednesday, she said, “I detect a malicious disinformation campaign in some print, electronic and digital media which has been unleashed with reference to a speech that I made in our students’ programme yesterday. Let me most emphatically clarify that I have not uttered a single word against the (medical etc.) students or their movements. I totally support their movement.”

“I never threatened them, as some people are accusing me of doing. This allegation is completely false,” she said.

She clarified her stance, saying, “I have spoken against BJP. I have spoken against them because, with the support of the Government of India, they are threatening the democracy in our State and trying to create anarchy…I also clarify that the phrase (“phonsh kara”) that I had used in my speech yesterday is a quote from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa Deva…My speech on that point was a direct allusion to the great Ramakrishnite saying.”

Row Over President Murmu’s ‘Enough is Enough” Remark

Meanwhile, a row has erupted over President Droupadi Murmu’s remarks on the Kolkata rape and murder.

BJP Reacts

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) quickly responded to Banerjee’s clarification. The saffron party’s Media Cell In-Charge, Amit Malviya, in a post on X, went on to quote Banerjee from her Wednesday speech and counter her clarification.

He wrote, “This is what Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of Bengal said, Junior doctors’ future will be ruined if FIR is filed, they will not get passport-visa.”

“Mamata Banerjee is digging herself deeper in the hole with this clarification. Shame on her for threatening medical students, demanding justice for their colleague, a young lady doctor, who was brutally raped and murdered in the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital,” he added.