News Analysis India

Tag: Arindam Bhattacharya

  • Calcutta University professor booked for allegedly threatening to kill CM Mamata Banerjee 

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Case was lodged against a professor of the Calcutta University for allegedly threatening on social media to kill Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, police said on Saturday.

    The case was registered against Arindam Bhattacharya, a professor of the Zoology Department, by the Hare Street police station on the basis of a complaint filed by PhD scholar Tamal Dutta, a senior police officer said.

    Bhattacharya was booked under IPC sections 505 (1B) (with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public), 506 (threat be to cause death or grievous hurt) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), said Murlidhar Sharma, the joint commissioner of police (crime).

    The professor is yet to be taken into custody, police said.

    When contacted, Bhattacharya told PTI, “I didn’t make any comments against the chief minister. The complainant is a Trinamool Congress supporter. I am waiting for the police to take steps and only after that I will seek legal advice on this.”

    During a conversation on Facebook Messenger, a friend told the professor, “Before the elections you had written in a WhatApp group that you wanted to kill the chief minister. That time you went to the TMC leader’s house to save yourself…” In reply, he wrote in Bengali, “Akhono hatya korte chai…Pa chata kutta ami noi… Ami oshikkhito birodhi (I still want to kill..I am not a footlicking dog. I am against those who are illiterate).”

    Battacharya said it was a personal conversation between him and a friend which was made public on social media.

    “This conversation happened sometime back. I have not threatened the chief minister or anyone and it is clear in the message,” he said.

    Bhattacharya, a professor of Zoology for 17 years, said the police complaint was lodged against him as part of a conspiracy so that he loses his job.

    “I am scared and tormented. I feel helpless and insulted. Never dreamt of facing such humiliation in my life. I can sense that this is a conspiracy against me so that I eventually lose my job,” he said.

    Bhattacharya was served a notice to appear before the investigating officer on Saturday afternoon.

    “I have nothing to do. Let the police arrest me. Let there be another Ambikesh Mahapatra,” he said.

    In April 2012, Chemistry professor Ambikesh Mahapatra of Jadavpur University was arrested for allegedly forwarding a cartoon, lampooning the chief minister.

    The TMC-backed West Bengal College and University Professors Association condemned Bhattacharya’s comments. Dutta, who lodged the police complaint, told PTI that a professor cannot make such remarks.

    “I went through the comments and found them to be quite dangerous. A professor cannot make such comments. That is why I approached the police and after consulting them, I lodged a complaint with the Cyber Cell,” he said.

  • Trinamool MLA Arindam Bhattacharya joins BJP, alleges Mamata’s party ‘lacks vision for Bengal’

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Desertions and dissidence continued to afflict the ruling Trinamool Congress, with another MLA joining the BJP on Wednesday while another elected representative publicly aired his grievances.

    Arindam Bhattacharya, the MLA of Santipur in Nadia district, met the BJP’s national general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya in New Delhi and joined the saffron camp at the party’s national headquarters.

    Bhattacharya had won the assembly election on a Congress ticket in 2016 and switched over to the TMC the next year.

    After joining the BJP, he claimed that the state’s youth are not happy with the Mamata Banerjee government due to a lack of jobs and industrialization.

    “West Bengal now wants to get identified with Modiji’s Mantra of Atmanirbhar Bharat. We want an Atmanirbhar West Bengal,” he said and alleged that he was not allowed to work in his area.

    Bhattacharya joins the growing list of the TMC leaders and elected representatives who changed sides ahead of the assembly election due in April-May this year.

    Reacting to the development, senior TMC MP Sougata Ray said that Bhattachraya’s desertion is good riddance.

    “More the people like him leave the party, the better it would be for us. He had come to the TMC from the Congress, and now he joined the BJP. It only shows his true colours,” Ray said.

    The TMC received a major jolt last month during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s rally at Midnapore, when in the biggest desertion from the TMC on a single day, party heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari and 34 other leaders, including five MLAs and an MP, switched over to the saffron camp.

    Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which the BJP bagged 18 seats in West Bengal, just four less than the TMC, and emerged as its challenger in the state, 15 MLAs and an MP of the TMC, three Left MLAs and and an equal number of Congress legislators have joined the BJP.

    However, none of them, except Suvendu Adhikari, resigned as a member of the assembly.

    Meanwhile, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghosal alleged that repair work of a key road in his constituency was not being allowed by a section of party leaders to harm his poll prospects.

    “I am not allowed to work properly in my area. My sources told me that they are creating hurdles in developmental work in my area as they want me defeated in the next election. A section of the (Hooghly) district unit is conspiring against me,” he said.

    The Kanaipur-Nabagram Road has been in a very bad shape but his initiative to repair it is being foiled by a group led by Kanaipur gram panchayat pradhan and local TMC leader Achhe Lal Yadav, the journalist turned politician claimed.

    Terming Ghosal’s allegations as baseless, Yadav said, “He is an ornamental MLA. He is issuing such statements only to show me in poor light.”

    Party sources said Ghosal and TMC Hooghly district president Dilip Yadav have been at loggerheads over organisational matters.

    Ghosal joins MLA Baishali Dalmiya, ministers Rajib Banerjee and Sadhan Pande, and several other TMC to voice grievances about the way of functioning of party leaders.

  • TMC’s Arindam Bhattacharya joins BJP

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Another Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Arindam Bhattacharya joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi on Wednesday ahead of West Bengal Assembly polls this year.

    Bhattacharya, from Nadia’s Santipur constituency, arrived in Delhi earlier today and met BJP’s national general secretary and in-charge of West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya. He joined the BJP at the party’s national headquarters on Wednesday afternoon.

    Bhattacharya was elected Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) on Congress ticket and later joined TMC.

    “I was elected on Congress symbol but extended support to TMC so that development happens but it didn’t,” Bhattacharya said.

    West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Dilip Ghosh on Tuesday said he is aiming to wipe out Trinamool Congress (TMC) Party from West Bengal in the upcoming state Assembly elections.

    About a month ago, in a major setback to TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former party leader Suvendu Adhikari joined Bharatiya Janata Party here on December 19 in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the Midnapore College ground along with several other party members.