New Delhi: In yet another big blow to the Trinamool Congress (TMC), party MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar on Thursday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, alleging verbal abuse and misogynistic behaviour by fellow member Kalyan Banerjee.
Kakoli’s grave allegations against her fellow party leader came a day after she resigned from all organisational posts she held in the TMC.
“I seek your permission to lodge a formal complaint to you for redressal against Lok Sabha Member of AITC Kalyan Banerjee, who has repeatedly verbally abused me inside the Lok Sabha,” she wrote in the letter, posted by news agency ANI.
“This misogyny has been against many lady members and needs to be punished,” Dastidar wrote to the Speaker.
Kakoli, an MP since 2009, while resigning from all organisational posts, including president of the party’s women’s wing, cited differences with the TMC leadership and “deep mental conflict and long reflection”.
She would continue as a MP and remain within the party as an ordinary worker, Kakoli clarified.
The MP from Barasat, in the northern fringes of Kolkata, also skipped key party events and publicly raised concerns over the TMC’s internal functioning. She was seen attending an administrative meeting chaired
by Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari despite objections from the party leadership.
Kakoli called her tenure as chief of the women’s wing “an important chapter” in her political life, in her resignation letter.
“But with great sadness and concern, I am requesting to resign from the post of Chairperson of All India Trinamool Mahila Congress along with other organisational posts, committees and responsibilities of the party,” she wrote.
She had, at that time, without naming Banerjee, referred to the conduct of “another uneducated and rude party MP” whose alleged behaviour towards a woman, Kakoli said, was neither checked by the party nor met with adequate support from senior leaders.
“It is not worth staying in a position where the indecent behaviour of another uneducated and rude party MP on a woman MP cannot be stopped or the cooperation and sympathy of the senior leadership cannot be obtained,” she wrote.
Kakoli had criticised the party’s functioning and said her removal as TMC’s Lok Sabha chief whip was “authoritarian”, in an earlier interview with Hindustan Times.
“It would have been better if she had informed me in advance. Instead of being authoritarian, it would have been better if she had adopted a democratic process,” Kakoli said in reference to party chief Mamata Banerjee.
In the interview, she also acknowledged corruption within the party structure.
“This is definitely a key reason for the defeat of TMC. Corruption is a very pertinent issue. The harsh ground reality is that these elected people at the lower level, be it at panchayat or municipality level, these elected people have been extorting money and indulged in all illegal activities,” she said.
Kakoli, however, defended grassroots workers, saying many “worked diligently and honestly for the party” despite being affected by corruption allegations involving local leaders.