‘Protesting women outsiders with fair complexion’, says Trinamool leader on Sandeshkhali case

Kolkata, Feb 15 (IANS) As the criticism mounts on the West Bengal government over the Sandeshkhali case, a section of the ruling Trinamool Congress leaders have started describing the protests by the women as being “orchestrated” than being “spontaneous”.

The Trinamool leaders are labeling the women protesters as “outsiders”, and to establish this ‘outsider’ theory, a supplementary theory pertaining to the “complexion” of these female protesters is being floated.

This twin theory has surfaced just before the scheduled visit by a field-inspection team of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to Sandeshkhali on Thursday, considering a major section of the protesting women there hail from Scheduled Caste communities.

Trinamool Congress legislator from Ashoknagar Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas district Narayan Goswami, said, “The people hailing from the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community have certain specific features as regards to body structure and skin complexion. The women at Sandeshkhali, who are protesting in front of the camera, mostly have extremely fair complexion. So the question is whether they really hail from the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe background,” Goswami said.

He also claimed that the party has done some on-ground investigation which has revealed that the protests by women at Sandeshkhali were mainly orchestrated by CPI(M). “If necessary we will provide all such details to the police as well. The protesters are mainly members of the women’s wing of CPI(M), who are just narrating scripted stories in front of the camera. If we get a chance to conduct a public meeting at Sandeshkhali in the coming days, we will surely highlight these matters,” Goswami added.

Reacting to these theories, the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari said that he will appeal to NCSC to propose for an immediate arrest of Goswami for his comments relating to skin complexion. “Actually the misdeeds of Trinamool Congress at Sandeshkhali have become a national issue and as a face-saving exercise their leaders are floating such weird theories,” he said.

–IANS

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