Slap echoes across political landscape, brings out worst in brutal Bengal

The youth slaps Abhishek Banerjee at the rally in East Midnapore’s 

Chandipur on Sunday. Pictures by Jahangir Badsa

TT, Tamluk, Jan. 4: Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee was slapped at least twice by a "whimsical" engineering student on a Trinamul affiliate's stage in East Midnapore this afternoon, triggering a chain of events that further inflamed the charged political atmosphere in Bengal.

Four factors stood out in the aftermath of the inexcusable slap: brutality, a sense of siege and intrigue, the vitiated nature of the political atmosphere and a sign of immaturity or absence of grace under pressure in Mamata's political heir.

In short, packed in the day was a microcosm of what Bengal politics has been for the past one year or ever since the Saradha scandal threw Trinamul into disarray.

The immediate fallout of the slap was a display of savage brutality by Trinamul activists who pounced on the youth and punched, kicked and thrashed him for nearly 30 minutes, leaving him covered in bruises and streaked in blood.

Later in the day, conspiracy theories began doing the rounds as East Midnapore is the fief of the Adhikari family, the sole clan in Trinamul that can claim some clout independent of Mamata's over-arching reach in Bengal politics.

There was little to suggest till late tonight that any organisation or group was behind the youth, identified as Debashis Acharya, who slapped Abhishek.

But such is the political situation in Bengal that tongues had already begun to wag whether rival camps would exploit the slap to add to the perceived strain in the relationship between Mamata and the Adhikaris - a family with two MPs and one MLA, none of whom was present at the meeting where Abhishek was attacked.

"Abhishek bore the brunt of the slap but its effect was felt far higher," a Trinamul leader said, suggesting that some are trying to portray the assault on the nephew as an indirect attack on Mamata.

Sisir Adhikari, the family patriarch and MP, moved swiftly in an attempt to nip mischievous rumours in the bud. "I have heard about the attack. Police should immediately identify the attacker and take action," he said, adding that he was not aware of being invited to the Trinamul Youth Congress meeting.

The youth wing event was organised in East Midnapore's Chandipur to protest against Saradha-related "canards", pitch for development and pay respects to the chief minister.

Sisir's sons Subhendu, an MP, and Dibyendu, an MLA, were not available for comment. Sources close to the family said it would be ludicrous to suggest that any supporter of the Adhikaris would attack a party leader on their own turf.

Mamata had been quoted as saying earlier that those who did not participate in the party's programmes were free to leave. The Adhikaris have been conspicuous by their absence from some of the recent Trinamul protests outside Parliament.

The East Midnapore Trinamul leaders who attended today's meeting were all from the anti-Adhikari camp, led by the party's district working president Akhil Giri.

Although no political link has been established to the slap, it came at a time the atmosphere in Bengal has been vitiated with confrontational declarations and the discourse marked by bad taste and intemperate language.

The chief minister herself has been at the vanguard of such offensives, calling rivals names, mouthing expletives and warning opponents that her post was constraining her from saying their tongues should be ripped out.

Another standout feature was the reluctance or inability of Abhishek to intervene and take charge of the situation after the young assailant was overpowered by Trinamul supporters at the meeting.

Abhishek is the Diamond Harbour MP and chief of the Trinamul youth wing, on whom Mamata has been relying increasingly of late.

Foot soldiers are known to use excessive force when their leaders are attacked but what separates them and the leader is the instinct to step in and defuse the situation.

For as many as 30 minutes, the youth was mercilessly beaten by the crowd but Abhishek did not intervene. Worse, the leader was spirited away from the venue within minutes.

After two successive slaps, when a shaken Abhishek stepped back to avoid further blows, Trinamul leaders pounced on the youth. Later, a mob took over.

After being slapped, Abhishek moved towards the back of the dais and waited for about a minute while the youth was being beaten up. The MP did not try to intervene.

Abhishek then picked up the microphone to continue his speech. But in the prevailing chaos on the dais, he could not do so. Finally, after a couple of minutes, the organisers escorted him down from the dais. Abhishek got into his car and left for Calcutta.

It is not unusual for targets of attacks to be taken away from the site in case of a security risk. The fact that Abhishek picked up the mike and wanted to speak suggests his hasty departure was not guided by any security assessment. In any case, beaten black and blue, the youth could hardly have been a threat any more.

But local Trinamul MLA Amiya Bhattacharya did try to rescue the youth. The MLA suffered injuries when he tried to intervene.

Trinamul initially did not blame anyone, saying it "is up to the administration to inquire into the matter and the law to take its course".

But Derek O'Brien, the party's national spokesperson, later quoted a TV channel and said: "Debashis Acharya (the attacker) said, ' Ami Bharatbasi. Ami abar phire ashbo Hindudharmer rokkharthe (I am an Indian. I shall come back again to protect the Hindu religion)'."

( The Telegraph's East Midnapore correspondent, who heard a tape, said that in the version replayed to him, he could not hear the second sentence and the reference to Hindudharma.)

O'Brien added: "Our young MP (Abhishek Banerjee) is made of sterner stuff. One slap from a coward will not affect his convictions or his mission."

Journalists covering the meeting were also beaten up following a rumour that a press photographer - probably because the youth was clicking pictures on his cellphone when he approached Abhishek - had attacked the MP. A reporter-cameraman of a Bengali news channel had to be hospitalised and at least six others suffered injuries.

The adjacent Chandipur police station was ransacked. Three officers - SDPO Tamluk Raj Mukherjee, circle inspector Sudha Ranjan Sarkar and the officer in charge of Chandipur police station, Kalyan Ghosh - and seven policemen were injured.

Some of the policemen had taken shelter in the police station while others rushed to the safety of nearby houses.