‘India’s biggest Pappu’ campaign against Amit Shah

 Abhishek Banerjee had called Shah so while talking to reporters after coming out of the Enforcement Directorate office

Trinamul workers with posters that carry Amit Shah’s picture at Uttarpara on Monday.: Picture by Amit Kumar Karmakar

Snehamoy Chakraborty   |  TT  |  Calcutta   |  06.09.22 : Trinamul Congress leaders and workers took out a rally in Hooghly’s Uttarpara on Monday against the BJP with placards and posters which had Amit Shah’s picture and a caption that read: “INDIA’s BIGGEST PAPPU.”

The campaign took off after Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had described Shah as “India’s biggest Pappu”. He called Shah so while talking to reporters after coming out of the enforcement directorate (ED) office where the Diamond Harbour MP was interrogated for seven hours in connection with coal smuggling.

A day earlier, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, had held a meeting in Uttarpara and attacked ruling party leaders for their alleged involvement in corruption.

Trinamul held a counter-meeting at the same place where Adhikari had addressed BJP workers on Sunday.

“Our leader Abhishek Banerjee has rightly said the biggest ‘Pappu’ of the country is none other than Amit Shah as he is making central agencies run after Opposition leaders in the state where his party has failed to win democratically. So, all our workers who took part in today’s protest wore placards that had a picture of Shah with the caption ‘India’s biggest Pappu’,” said Indrajit Ghosh, the Trinamul town president in Uttarpara.

Earlier in the day, Trinamul Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien went to Parliament wearing a similar T-Shirt and it went viral on social media. The Rajya Sabha member also shot a video and shared it on his social media handle where he explained why Shah had been given the title of “India’s biggest Pappu”. He termed Shah as the most incompetent minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet.

After emerging from over seven hours of questioning by ED sleuths in Calcutta, Abhishek on Friday mounted an attack on Shah and explained why he described him as the biggest “pappu” the country has ever seen.

“In states where you don’t have a (BJP-led) government, you will let the CBI, the ED loose on those states’ leaders, try to fell those democratically elected governments by hook or by crook. You do not want there to be a level-playing field, you only want to play and score in an unmanned field, with an empty goal. Hence I’m saying that Amit Shah is the biggest pappu,” said Abhishek.

“They call a leader from another Opposition party (the Congress) ‘pappu’ (a nickname thrust upon Rahul Gandhi by the saffron camp’s propaganda machinery). But the biggest pappu this country has seen is Amit Shah,” he added.

A day after Abhishek mocked Shah, multiple cousins from the extended family of the Trinamul leader, along with his followers, started a T-shirt campaign emblazoned with the face of Shah along with the “Pappu” caption. Multiple youths and student leaders had already started sharing their pictures wearing such T-shirts on social media platforms.

Sources said I-PAC and office of Abhishek were very keen to start a statewide campaign to attack the BJP by mocking Shah with the “Pappu” caption. Leadership in the districts has been asked to use such posters at protest rallies.

“Abhishek Banerjee knows that the only person who can save him from the ire of the people is Amit Shah. This is why he is putting up Amitji’s image on T-shirts and keeping him close to his heart,” said BJP leader Samik Bhattacharya.