Beginning of end for frustrated BJP: Mamata reacts to TMC delegation being detained at Silchar Airport

A delegation of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) was stopped and allegedly roughed up at the Silchar Airport on Thursday. The delegation comprising MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Ratna De Nag, Nadimul Haque, Arpita Ghosh, Mamata Thakur, minister Firhad Hakim and MLA Mahua Moitra, was scheduled to visit Silchar on the of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft.

According to reports, anti-government slogans were raised outside the Silchar airport and the AITC delegation was stopped sensing a fear of agitation.

Lashing out, a defiant Mamata Banerjee said: “These atrocities being done, aren't only being condemned, I think this is beginning of the end. They are frustrated, they are political tense & depressed. And that's why they are showing muscle power.”

She also said: “There is super emergency in the country; TMC MPs have been manhandled in Assam.”

 The Trinamool Congress is planning to move a privilege motion in Lok Sabha tomorrow against the detention of its members of parliament in Silchar in Assam today.

The TMC delegation consisting six members of Parliament, one MLA and one minister from West Bengal government had left for Silchar to interact with people left out of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on Monday.
 

The TMC has launched a strong protest against the draft NRC inside and outside Parliament.

The members of the delegation has alleged that they were stopped at the Silchar airport and confined "unlawfully".

"As soon as we landed in Silchar hundreds of state policemen led by commissioner and deputy commissioner surrounded us and confined us illegally and unlawfully in a room. They have even manhandled many of us. This is super emergency here," TMC lawmaker Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar told reporters in New Delhi on the phone from Silchar airport.

The matter was also raised inside Lok Sabha by party leader Saugata Roy, who said Assam is not out of the country and how Assam government could stop members of Parliament from entering Assam. "I said I will raise the privilege motion against the Assam government," Roy said.

Launching a scathing attack on the BJP and its government in the state, TMC lawmaker Derek O'Brien said the delegation was stopped even though the members decided to go and meet the people left out of NRC in groups of two. They were stopped and "beaten up", he alleged.

He claimed that though the police had informed the members of the delegation that they would not be allowed to move out as the situation is tense outside, police could not show any restraining order to prove its claims.

"They are not law-breakers but lawmakers," O'Brien told reporters.

The TMC delegation members, who staged a sit-in at Silchar airport, has accused the BJP of using the state administration for political vendetta. 

With inputs from PTI