Harassment Claims On Governor: BJP, Left Highlight Woman's Trinamool Links

With the Trinamool Congress highlighting the sexual harassment complaint against West Bengal Governor, CV Ananda Bose, by a temporary staff member of Raj Bhavan in Kolkata, the Opposition parties including the BJP and CPI(M) have started questioning the links of the woman to the ruling party.

The Opposition is pointing to an event where the mother of the accuser had contested as a Trinamool Congress candidate in a local election in East Midnapore District of West Bengal in 2002.

East Midnapore is the native district of the woman who filed the police complaint of sexual harassment against Governor Bose on Thursday evening.

Governor Bose has described the allegation as an "engineered narrative" coined to gain electoral benefits.

The fact of the accuser's mother contesting as a Trinamool Congress candidate in 2002 was revealed to the media by veteran CPI(M) District Secretary in East Midnapore, Niranjan Sihi.

"I remember everything. To me this is a ploy to divert attention from other burning issues in the state like the Sandeshkhali development and the loss of school jobs," he said.

The BJP's former National Vice President, Dilip Ghosh, had described the entire development as a "scripted" strategy on part of the ruling party.

"This kind of dirty politics will result in the downfall of the ruling party. But one thing is clear. When the ruling party can target someone in this position and that too in such a manner, the condition of the ordinary public is well-imaginable," Ghosh said.

On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a public meeting questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "silence" in the matter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)