A huge controversy erupted on Sunday amid the polling for 30 assembly seats in West Bengal, with the BJP releasing an audio clip where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is purportedly heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to rejoin the TMC and help her win the seat.
Banerjee is pitted against her former protege and now the BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram, the springboard that propelled her to power in 2011, dislodging the Left Front from power after a 34-year unbroken rule. A BJP delegation, led by party general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya, met the state's chief electoral officer and handed over the tape, claiming Banerjee was using her official position to influence the outcome of the bitterly contested assembly poll.
The ruling TMC questioned the genuineness of the audiotape, but asserted that since Pralay Pal was a former TMC leader who switched over to the BJP, there was nothing wrong with Banerjee trying to woo him back.
Pal, who pledged his allegiance to the Adhikari family, whose two members are still TMC Lok Sabha members, claimed Banerjee personally called him up and asked him to help her win the Nandigram seat.
"You should help us win Nandigram. Look, I know you have some grievances, but that's due mostly to the Adhikaris who never allowed me to get into Nandigram or East Midnapore. I will take care of everything henceforth," Banerjee purportedly told Pal, a BJP official in East Midnapore, the district where the Adhikari family holds sway.
Pal, however, was not game. "Didi, you called me and I am honoured. But I can't betray the Adhikaris as they have stood by me through thickand thin," he was heard saying in the audio clip.
He later told TV news channels that Banerjee called him up and requested him to return to the TMC, a proposal he declined. "I am now working for the BJP and can't betraythem," said Pal.
