Mamata Banerjee charged at the people, calling them "criminals", "outsiders" and worse.
Highlights
- Group of men shouted "Jai Shri Ram" at her convoy in North 24 Parganas
- Mamata Banerjee got off the car and reprimanded the people
- Ms Banerjee skipped PM's oath ceremony on Thursday
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lost her temper for the second time this month as a group of people chanted "Jai Shri Ram" slogans as she drove past on Thursday. This time, too, she got off her car and reprimanded the people. But when she was getting into her car, the slogans started again. This time, she charged at the people, calling them "criminals", "outsiders" and worse.
She even borrowed a dialogue from a film called "MLA Fatakeshto" that starred Mithun Chakrabarty - one in which he threatened rivals with dire consequences.
"I know all these people... I challenge them... if I hit you here -- remember the Mithun Chakraborty dialogue? 'If I hit you here...' I can't say the dialogue as he talks about dead bodies and I will not say such things. But I will say -- I will hit you here and justice will be delivered somewhere else," the Chief Minister said.
Bengal witnessed a bitter turf war between Ms Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and the BJP during the recently concluded Lok Sabha election. The Trinamool, however, got the worst of it as the BJP, from two seats in 2014, increased its tally to 18 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.
Over the last week, Ms Banerjee's troops - several legislators, councilors and more than 60 corporators -- have defected to the BJP.
On Thursday, Ms Banerjee skipped Prime Minister Narendra Modi's oath in Delhi as the BJP said they would invite 50 families from Bengal to the ceremony. They were the relatives of party workers killed by Trinamool men, the BJP said.
In a curt letter posted on Twitter, Ms Banerjee said the allegation was "completely untrue".
"The ceremony is an august occasion to celebrate democracy, not one that should be devalued by any political party that uses it as an opportunity to score political points," Mamata Banerjee wrote in her negative RSVP.