As Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s remarks spark a row, a look at BJP leaders’ jibes at Mamata

With the Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongly criticising the “derogatory” remarks made by former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the current BJP candidate from the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency, at a poll rally against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, questioning how one could make such comments about a woman, the TMC and the BJP are again caught in a war of words.

This is not the first time the BJP has targeted the TMC supremo with words that have created a controversy.

During the 2021 Assembly elections, the then state BJP president Dilip Ghosh stoked a row by saying that Mamata should wear bermudas in order to display her plastered leg. The CM had then been spearheading her party’s campaign on a wheelchair after she was injured during electioneering in Nandigram on March 10, 2021.

While addressing a rally in Purulia on March 23, 2021, Ghosh asked why the TMC chief wasn’t wearing a pair of bermudas instead of a sari, which would show her injury to the electorate. “The CM wants to show everyone her plastered leg. Why doesn’t she just wear a pair of bermudas, instead of draping a sari?… I have never seen anyone drape a sari like that,” Ghosh claimed.

He went on to defend his remarks, saying “She is our CM, we expect her to act appropriately, befitting Bengal’s culture. A woman showing her legs in a sari is inappropriate. People are objecting. I found it objectionable. So I spoke”.

After the TMC’s landslide victory in the 2021 elections, a section of the BJP leadership targeted Ghosh for his insensitive remarks against Mamata, saying that it had “tarnished” the BJP’s image in the state.

During his campaign in the state for the 2021 polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept calling Mamata “Didi o Didi”. A