The Trinamool Congress may have fielded actor-politician Saayoni Ghosh from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha segment, a party stronghold on the southern fringes of Kolkata, but that hasn’t granted her immunity to battling voters’ perceptions on one of West Bengal’s most pressing issues in the parliamentary polls — Sandeshkhali.
Even as the 31-year-old youth leader made no attempts to hide her initial euphoria over her party’s call to award her a ticket from the prestigious seat, she maintained that it “felt like a homecoming”. Ms. Ghosh also asserted that the Sandeshkhali damage was “well controlled”.
Also read: Sandeshkhali violence: Fire and smoke in a West Bengal village
“One Sandeshkhali won’t turn around women’s perception of Mamata Banerjee in this state,” Saayoni told PTI in an interview, “The very fact that she is the country’s only woman CM itself goes to show how Bengal reposes faith in a woman to run a government.”
Ms. Gosh’s confidence appeared to stem from her belief that Ms. Banerjee “handled Sandeshkhali incredibly”, and could contain the situation well in time before the BJP could “turn a controversy into a conspiracy and convert that into a Nandigram or a Singur by blowing it out of proportions”.
“The CM took all necessary and decisive actions. She set up grievance redress camps, sent political delegations to placate people’s anger, started the process of returning land parcels via DMs and block offices and made all arrests,” she listed.
She praised the police for arresting TMC leader and Sandeshkhali prime accused Shahjahan Sheikh. “The Bengal police delivered where the ED and the CBI failed. Shahjahan’s arrest could have happened sooner if there hadn’t been a judgment anomaly in the High Court. The central agencies never brought that up. So, what stopped them from arresting him?” she argued.
“What happened in Sandeshkhali is very unfortunate. I am not trying to defend it in any way. But it is an isolated development and the impact is well contained,” Saayoni maintained.
