Sandeshkhali Shame Looms Large as Mamata Banerjee Reaches Out to Women

Charges of land grab and sexual exploitation of women in Sandeshkhali has severely tarnished the image of the Trinamool Congress, and also its chairperson Mamata Banerjee, all over the state. 

This has led to the Trinamool’s top leadership launching a desperate outreach to women — one of the party’s twin core constituencies (the other being the large Muslim minority) — to contain the fallout of Sandeshkhali. 

More than the reports coming out of Sandeshkhali, it was the initial attempts by the Trinamool leadership to deny the allegations that did more damage to the party.

Also, the top Trinamool leadership’s bid to protect Sheikh Shahjahan, at all costs — even risking judicial censure — created a strong perception that Mamata Banerjee herself was keen on shielding him. 

In fact, the Bengal government tried its best to prevent central investigative agencies from taking custody of Shahjahan. It even knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court to get a stay on a Calcutta High court order asking the state police to hand over custody of Shahjahan to the CBI. 

This created the perception all over the state that Banerjee was more interested in shielding Shahjahan than providing justice to the people, especially the women, of Sandeshkhali. 

By the time the Trinamool leadership realised that it could no longer brush the mess in Sandeshkhali under the carpet and sent its ministers, top police officers and bureaucrats to undo the damage, it was too little, too late. 

So compelling seemed the desire by the Trinamool leadership to safeguard Sheikh Shahjahan that even after indirectly acknowledging his crimes by initiating corrective measures like returning the lands he (Shahjahan) and his associates had forcibly grabbed, the state police did not arrest him. 

A Calcutta High Court division bench order imposing a stay on a single-bench order on constituting a joint probe by the state police and the CBI on the attack on Enforcement Directorate officers who had gone to Sandeshkhali to search Shahjahan’s residence in early January, was deliberately misinterpreted by Abhishek Banerjee to explain away police inaction. 

Ultimately, when the High Court clarified that there was no bar on arresting Shahjahan, the state police promptly arrested him within a few hours. Before that, the police had consistently maintained that Shahjahan was absconding and a statewide manhunt had been launched to trace him. 

After Shahjanas’s arrest, when the CBI asked for his custody to interrogate him, the police refused pointblank to hand him over to the central agency. The High Court had to step in and ask the state CID to hand over custody to the CBI. 

But the CID refused, citing a petition the state had filed against the High Court order before the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s plea and the High Court took a grim view of the deliberate defiance of its orders, the state government had no option but to comply. 

All this drama earlier this week only reinforced the impression that Mamata Banerjee was insistent on protecting her party strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, who had exploited the women of Sandeshkhali. 

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), upped the ante against Mamata Banerjee and accused her of condoning Shahjahan’s crimes, especially those against women. The BJP launched a statewide campaign against Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress. 

The opposition campaign, and the favourable response it started receiving in all parts of the state, unnerved Mamata Banerjee and her party colleagues. 

Early last week, a series of meetings were held at Banerjee’s residence to take stock of the situation and decide on remedial measures. 

The Trinamool leadership was rattled by ground reports from grassroots functionaries of the party that the Sandeshkhali incidents had greatly harmed the image of the party and its supremo. The reports categorically said that the fallout would be grave in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. 

The Trinamool leadership formulated an action plan to aggressively counter the BJP’s campaign through women’s rallies and by launching sops for women. 

The first in the series of measures that were decided upon have been implemented. The Bengal government announced Thursday (7 March) that it would hike the remuneration of accredited social health activists (ASHA) and anganwadi workers.  

The remuneration of 70,000-odd accredited social health activists and 2.25 lakh anganwadi workers in Bengal has been hiked from Rs 8,250 to Rs 9,000 per month while the remuneration of anganwadi helpers has been hiked from Rs 6,000 to Rs 6,500 per month. There are over 1.07 lakh registered anganwadi helpers in the state. 

“A huge number of women in the rural and mofussil areas will be benefited by this hike. It is a pro-women measure and reflects the commitment of the Trinamool Congress, especially our party supremo Mamata Banerjee, to ‘ma, maati and manush’. No matter what the BJP alleges, women of Bengal are firmly with Mamata Banerjee,” asserted party Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien. 

The women’s rally in Kolkata led by Mamata Banerjee Thursday (7 March) was part of this damage-control exercise. Banerjee, accompanied by her nephew Abhishek and a few thousand women, including leaders and functionaries of the Trinamool, marched 2.8 kilometres down central Kolkata’s major roads to highlight her commitment to women’s rights and welfare. 

According to Trinamool leaders, the party will organise similar women’s rallies all over the state. Front-ranking leaders of the party, including its Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs, have been tasked with leading these rallies. 

The Trinamool has also launched a campaign in the social media to counter the narrative that Mamata Banerjee only pays lip service to women’s welfare and rights. 

This campaign, launched late last week, has tried to counter the BJP’s offensive against the Trinamool by highlighting crimes against women in BJP-ruled states. 

It is learnt that Mamata Banerjee is also likely to announce hikes in the amount of doles for women under various welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhadar (monthly doles for poor women), bidhaba bhata (pension for widows), kanyashree (doles to poor families to educate their girl children), rupashree (financial aid to poor families for marriage of their daughters) and scholarships for female students, among others. 

These planned hikes will be announced in a phased manner in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections for maximum effect. 

All these measures, feel the Trinamool leadership, will help the party tide over the negative fallout of the Sandeshkhali mess. 

However, that is easier said than done. It will take much more than rallies, aggressive counter-campaigns and hikes in doles to reverse the popular perception that Mamata Banerjee put her party interests over that of her stated principles. 

The impression that she preferred to protect Sheikh Shahjahan than the exploited women of Sandeshkhali will be hard to erase.