'You will be BEATEN up with SHOES if...': TMC MP Saugata Roy warns BJP, CPI-M leaders in West Bengal

Saugata Roy's shoe remarks evoked a sharp response from the BJP and its state president Sukanta Majumdar said the comments of the retired professor show how verbal abuses have become the trend in the TMC.

Kolkata: Saugata Roy, a senior leader in West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party, has warned the BJP and CPI(M) leaders not to “cross the limits of decency” while attacking his party for the alleged misdeeds of a few otherwise they will be beaten up with shoes and “thown out of their localities.” Roy said he was highly upset with the barrage of "defamatory attacks" being made by the opposition leaders against senior TMC functionaries after the arrest of Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal by central agencies in different cases. He, however, later said that his ‘shoe’ remark should not be taken literally.

Roy made these remarks on Sunday while addressing a street corner meeting in Kolkata during which he said, "If there is any BJP or CPI(M) activist here, listen carefully. If any of you cross the limits of decency by branding everyone in the TMC as thieves while attacking the party, don't blame us if our party men beat you up with shoes." "Don't complain if you are thrown out of your locality by our members," he added.

His remarks evoked a sharp response from the BJP and its state president Sukanta Majumdar said the comments of the retired professor show how verbal abuses have become the trend in the TMC.

“Shedding his mask of civility, Saugata Roy adopted the language of the lumpen. Very soon the people of Bengal will turn against the corrupt TMC in public and leaders like Roy will face the music," Majumdar said.

CPI(M) Central Committee member Sujan Chakraborty too claimed that Roy is trying to raise his ratings in the TMC hierarchy by making such comments. "If he wants to threaten us, let me tell him that our cadre is ready to face the TMC's rowdyism on road," he said.

Trinamool Congress state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh sought to defend his party colleague, saying that attacks by the entire opposition against every TMC leader after the arrest of Chatterjee and Mondal probably made a veteran MP like Roy utter such comments.

Later, Roy was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI that the shoe comment was just a ‘rhetoric’ used by the Naxalites in the early 1070s. It should not be taken literally.

It may be noted that Roy recently said that shoes will be made by peeling off the skin of those who believe they can get away by maligning the TMC under the garb of protest. However, he later regretted making such a remark.

Anubrata Mondal and Partha Chatterjee’s arrest by the CBI has come as a big setback for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The TMC supremo is already on the backfoot after their arrest by the central agencies in different cases of alleged corruption and has been facing opposition attacks for shielding them.

In a bid to improve the image of the TMC government, CM Mamata Banerjee has directed her ministers to follow austerity measures and expose any instance of corruption at any level by the TMC functionaries. 

(With PTI Inputs)