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After
Nayana, Madhabi finds herself in the eye of a storm
Subrata Nagchoudhury
 Kolkata,
April 25:
Trinamool Congress party’s starcast in the poll fray are in
a soup. Earlier, some Bengali channels had started beaming a film
Kenaram Becharam starring Tapas Paul and Nayana Das, both Trinamool
candidates, and invited censures from the state’s Chief Electorate
Officer (CEO). And now, Madhabi Mukherjee finds herself in the midst
of an ugly controversy over a remark she reportedly made during
a debate on a TV channel last Sunday.
The Left Front
did not take kindly to either and are out to capitalise on this
on the eve of the elections. The CPI(M) leadership lodged an official
complaint with the CEO regarding repeated telecast of the film.
Their grudge: ‘‘The movie was giving extra mileage to
the candidates’’. The CEO, West Bengal, issued show cause
notices to a couple of channels following the complaint while officials
from another channel met the CEO and promised not to telecast the
film any more.
Close on its
heels, comes the controversy surrounding Madhabi — the Trinamool’s
challenge to Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya in Jadavpur constituency.
The bitter controversy was sparked over a comment she allegedly
made on working women in rural Bengal. She was pitted against Ajit
Pande, a Left candidate and a leftist singer, in a programme titled
Rajay Rajay (King versus King). Accusing Madhabi of a volte face,
Pande pointed out that the former actress had actually recorded
her comments in a cassette sponsored by the Left Front, in which
she had said that people from rural Bengal have stopped migrating
to Kolkata because of rapid growth and development there during
the Left Front rule.
Madhabi denied
having said anything like that and sought to explain that she actually
meant to say that women from rural Bengal have stopped coming to
Kolkata for work. ‘‘They have become lazy. They come for
a night to the city and go back with enough earnings,’’
Madhabi reportedly said.
CPI(M)’s
women wing — Ganatantrik Mahila Samity — has pounced on
this golden opportunity to make an issue out of it. The Samity activists
organised as many as six protest rallies in Jadavpur constituency
yesterday in which the leaders condemned Madhabi and asked for an
immediate public apology. Kanak Mukherjee, one of the founders of
the Ganatantrik Mahila Samity, said: ‘‘The comment was
extremely disgraceful, beneath the dignity of any educated man.
She has damaged the honour of working women in Bengal.’’
Mukul Roy, a
spokesman for Trinamool Congress, however, said that immediately
after hearing the news, the party had got in touch with Madhabi
and she denied having said anything of this sort. ‘‘To
quote Madhabidi, her remark has been picked out of the context,’’
Roy said. Madhabi herself was not available for comments.
Political observers,
however, say that Madhabi Mukherjee was never in the race in the
triangular contest. Samir Putatunda, the breakaway leader from the
CPI(M), who is contesting in Jadavpur, on a Party for Democratic
Socialism ticket, is far greater threat to Buddhadev. The more Madhabi
gets marginalised, the more fierce becomes the fight between Buddhadev
and Putatunda.
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