"Will Visit Sandeshkhali After...": Mamata Banerjee's Big Announcement

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said she would visit Sandeshkhali within a few days.  As soon as her party candidate Haji Nurul wins from Basirhat -- the Lok Sabha seat the area comes under Haji Nurul wins -- her first visit will be to Sandeshkhali, the Chief Minister said today.

"I will go to meet the people there," said Ms Banerjee, who has not visited the Ground Zero of the massive controversy that hit her Trinamool Congress in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election.

In February, Sandeshkhali -- an island on the borders of Sundarbans, around 100 km from Kolkata -- erupted, with a group of people, mostly women, holding massive protest marches against the local Trinamool leader Sheikh Shahjahan, accusing him of landgrabbing and sexual exploitation.

But subsequent events took myriad twists and turns amid a massive political row between the Trinamool and the BJP.

The latest twist involves a viral video that claimed the women in Sandeshkhali were bribed by a BJP leader who wanted them to allege that they had been raped. The women had been given Rs 2000 each, it claimed.

The Trinamool shared the purported video, in which a woman was heard saying, "We were deceived in signing on blank papers. We discovered later that rape complaints had been lodged in our names. This is a blatant lie".

Senior party leader bhishek Banerjee said, "Women are now coming out and revealing the truth that no rape had taken place in Sandeshkhali and BJP leaders made them sign on blank papers to file fake rape cases".

Later, a BJP leader was also arrested. She is now out on bail.
Sheikh Shahjahan, suspended by the party, has also been arrested.