KOLKATA:
Trinamool
released Saturday a sting video showing a Sandeshkhali BJP functionary admitting that many of the charges, including rape in the area, were levelled following instructions allegedly from party seniors, including the LoP in Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari. BJP dismissed the clip as “fake”.
The 33-minute video focuses on Sandeshkhali Block-II BJP mandal president Gangadhar Koyal.
“We have followed Suvendu da’s (BJP MLA Adhikari) instructions. He helped us. We convinced
TMC
people to do all this (level allegations). They (complainants) never said no, they did whatever we told them to do. He (Adhikari) told us that if we could not do this, if we could not get the big shots (Trinamool seniors of the area) arrested, we would not be able to stand (survive) here,” Koyal is heard saying. “I had to do all this very smartly. We said it (the alleged rapes and torture) happened seven-eight months ago. We had to work hard,” he adds.
Trinamool, including party chief Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, latched on to the video. The CM first took to X and then spoke at length at public meetings in Nadia’s Chakdah and Taherpur during the day. “The sting shows how deep the rot is within BJP. In their hatred for Bengal’s progressive thought and culture, the Bangla birodhis (anti-Bengal brigade) orchestrated a conspiracy to defame our state. Never before in the history of India has a ruling party in Delhi tried to malign an entire state and its people. History will witness how Bengal will rise in rage against Delhi’s conspiratorial regime and ensure their bisarjan (defeat),” she wrote on X.
Adhikari was guarded in his response: “I have not seen the video. I will find out whose voice it is and speak on the matter.” Later, he said truth could be “twisted and a misleading version circulated”. “But its shelf life is very short. Ultimately, truth prevails,” he said. “I will approach CBI and seek a full probe so that the perpetrators are punished.”
Koyal himself later called the “viral video a conspiracy and a plot”. “They have used technology to fake my voice. This is a ploy to defame me, my party, the mothers of Sandeshkhali and my leader (Adhikari),” he claimed.
One of the first Sandeshkhali complainants and now BJP’s candidate for Basirhat LS seat, Rekha Patra, called the video a Trinamool “ploy”. “The video is fake, there is no truth in it. Koyal is a BJP man, he can never say all this,” she said, asserting that Trinamool “may have threatened Koyal to say all this”.
The video shows BJP mandal president Koyal crediting Adhikari for everything. “It was he (Adhikari) who controlled…. Why has the Sandeshkhali movement survived for so long? He is still holding on, that is why. No one else has the ability to sustain this movement for so long,” he says in the video. “Empty pockets (khali haat) cannot do all this,” he replies when the interviewer in the footage asks him whether Adhikari sent mobile phones and money.
Koyal is also heard saying some women backed off from complaining because they were scared of visiting police stations and investigations. The video also shows a woman saying she backed out because she had not been instructed properly. BJP Sandeshkhali Block-I president Shanti Dolui is seen nodding in agreement with the interviewer when asked whether the pistols recovered by central agencies later were “planted”.
The male interviewer remains unidentified throughout the video but, from the body language of Koyal & others, it appears they’re comfortable with him and know him.
“You scripted a good drama on Sandeshkhali,” CM Banerjee later said at Chakdah. “I’ve been telling you all for some time that this is a conspiracy and a BJP-scripted drama. I have heard of this expose from the media and have not seen it in detail myself but I will definitely see it,” the CM added.
