I was told by someone: if you know what not to say, more than what you say – you can achieve great heights in life. TMC leaders have offered us a masterclass in what you definitely shouldn’t say or else you’ll regret a lot, of course, if you are a person with morals. If you aren’t, nothing can help you out.
While addressing a crowd in North Dumdum on his first day of his campaign for the Phase 2 of the 2026 West Bengal election, Home Minister Amit Anilchandra Shah, while referring to Kolkata, said, ‘Poora Shehar, ek prakaar se, aaj jhopad-patti ka shehar bankar reh gaya hai (In a way, the whole city has become a city of slums today).’ Not ‘is a city of slums’ but ‘has become a city of slums’ was said by Shah. There is a difference.
But still, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, commenting on this, called the sitting Home Minister of India a ‘third-grade political tourist’ for his own mistake. To be precise, O’Brien wrote: ‘How dare you. Amit Shah, you third-grade political tourist. How dare you call Kolkata, “a city of slums”’.
Derek O Brien, it’s been seven years since February 2019 that you started taking Hindi tuitions and you still can’t understand a simple line in Hindi. If I can ask, what’s the issue? Isn’t the teacher who used to come to teach you capable or are you not a good learner? See, with all due sympathy, if the former is the case, I can help you by arranging some good teacher. However, if it’s the latter, kindly let me know. Because I’m a follower of Chanakya, and Chanakya has said not to waste time teaching fools.
Quoting O’Brien was another TMC MP, a journalist herself and wife of journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose. Ghose was a step ahead of O’Brien as she called Shah a ‘vulgar third rater person’. That how Shah had zero knowledge of Kolkata.
Ms Ghose, I have listened to your interview with Manak Gupta on News24 and I think you are someone who is very much fluent and confident in Hindi. How come you wrote such stuff? Did you not watch the 28 second ‘long’ clip before making that absolutely demeaning comment? Or does TMC requires a journalist to forget the basic principle of double checking things before writing anything if he/she becomes an MP from their party? If this is correct, then it’s fine. Else, in my humble opinion – you have failed as a journalist today.
And according to Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s own website, ‘about 1.5 million people in Kolkata (1/3rd of the total population) live in slums’. Please don’t ask me which period this data belongs to, because the Corporation under your rule hasn’t mentioned the same. Maybe they have zero knowledge about it? But Shah did have it, I hope you will agree on this.
Bad language is not something new for the TMC. I remember, in 2015, Saayoni Ghosh, now a TMC MP, tweeted an image in which a woman could be seen making the Shivling wear a condom. The caption to this tweet was: ‘Gods cudnt have been more useful’.
Although Ghosh denies that she wasn’t the one who did this tweet, but ‘cudnt’ flipped the game for her. That, at least, from 2012 to 2018, she was using ‘cudnt’ in her tweets. However, now, she is a frequent user of ‘couldn’t’. Happens, when you become an MP. You hire some PR agency to handle your account and then that agency’s content writer writes for you. Polish comes with money and Ghosh’s case is a prime example of it.
Is all this just online? I feel sad to say this, but no and offline it’s actually worse. I mean, while addressing a massive crowd during election campaigning recently, Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also a TMC MP, said: ‘… This time, I will personally take charge. After 12 PM on the 4th, I will see how much power these executioners have and whose ‘Delhi godfather’ comes to save them’.
Adding a feather to Mr Banerjee’s cap is Jahangir Khan, his aide and TMC candidate from Falta, who has threatened IPS Ajay Pal Sharma. Sharma, whose only fault was that he had visited Khan’s place on the basis of complaints that he received, saying Khan’s men were threatening the voters. Sharma didn’t do anything extra-judicial, but only asked to maintain law and order. But still, Khan said this to him: ‘Picture abhi baaki hai. You started the Khela, we will finish it’.
And it wasn’t just Khan who crossed the line. TMC Spokesperson Riju Datta, who is a doctor by profession, also said something threatening to Sharma. Datta said once the results are declared, no BJP owner of yours will be able to save you.
I am actually worried about the state of West Bengal now, rather than these TMC chaps, because I know they won’t change. After all, they aren’t kids, but adult beings who have been in power in the state since 2011. If until now they haven’t learned how one should act in a democracy, how can I teach them the basics?
But what I can certainly tell is that no one ‘owns’ IPS Sharma or any other IPS officer for that matter. They are not anyone’s personal servants. IPS officers earn their position through one of the toughest exams in the country and serve the government of the day, which is currently led by the BJP, but ultimately elected by the people.
That the TMC can definitely be called a powerful party in the Bangladesh-bordering West Bengal in terms of politics, but not at all a powerful party in terms of manners.
